of his surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment, disarmed them from attacking his singleness.

Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease.

‘I’m sorry we are so late,’ he was saying. ‘We couldn’t find a button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you were to the moment.’

‘We are usually to time,’ said Mr Crich.

‘And I’m always late,’ said Birkin.