“Oh, well, we can use them for fancy china and ornaments. Or — oh, look! — you could keep your stuff there. Tools and all. Then the bathroom wouldn’t be mussy all the time.”

“Beds?”

“Right here. Isn’t that wonderful. Would you ever know it was there? You can work it with one hand. Look.”

“Do you really like it, Coral?”

“I love it. It’s heavenly.”

He stood in the centre of the absurd living room, a tall, lank, awkward figure, a little stooped now. His face was beginning to be furrowed with lines — deep lines that yet were softening, and not unlovely. He made you think, somehow, as he stood there, one hand on his own coat lapel, of Saint-Gaudens’