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.There is no harm in them.'Mrs.Beddoes hesitated over this doubtful recommendation.Perhaps even a hostess seeking young men for a dance demands something more positive than the assurance that there is no harm in them.'Are they tall?' she asked.'Digby is very tall - over six feet, I should say.Mark is of medium height, perhaps a little shorter than Tom.''Well, that sounds ideal,' Mrs.Beddoes put on her gloves and then suddenly said in a confidential tone, 'My dear, there is this terrible difficulty of getting hold of enough suitable young men.The regular ones get so blasé and often don't turn up at all, and poor Lalage is five foot eleven - girls seem to be enormous these days, don't they.''And to think that they grew up under the Labour Government and austerity,' said Catherine.'Yes, that is strange,' Mrs.Beddoes looked troubled for a moment, 'But things are all right now' she added obscurely.'Thank you, Miss Oliphant, for all your help.I shall tell Naomi how kind you have been.Perhaps I shall write a note to Tom.''The bus stop is a few yards down the road, or shall I get you a taxi?' Catherine asked.'Well.,' Mrs.Beddoes smiled apologetically.'I think a taxi, please.I'm rather tired and it will be getting on towards the rush hour now.They tell us not to use public transport between 4.30 and 6.30, don't they.'So for the second time that day Catherine saw a member of Tom's family into a taxi.The day was coming to its end, and although it had been tiring and upsetting it had at least been full and that, she supposed, was all to the good.Pain, amusement, surprise, resignation, were all woven together into a kind of fabric whose colour and texture she could hardly visualize as yet.Something with little lumps on it, she thought, knobs or knops as it said in the fashion magazines.The meeting with Tom's aunt had somehow pleased and comforted her; being without relations herself, she could, as it were, rejoice that others should have aunts, and now that there was nothing disgraceful about her relationship with Tom perhaps she might even visit his other aunt in her hotel in South Kensington.But as evening approached she began to wish that somebody would telephone her and take her out to dinner.She thought of various men she knew but realized philosophically that it was unlikely that any of them would know of her plight and she was too proud to telephone.The best thing to do if you're lonely, she thought, is to seek out some other lonely person, but she could only think of Alaric Lydgate and somehow she did not feel that meeting him once at the garden fence was enough to justify a further advance on her side.And in any case, she told herself, she wasn't really lonely; it just felt rather strange not to have Tom there.But no more strange than when he had been away in Africa.She lay in bed, sleepless, wondering if he were comfortably settled, but she mustn't be fussy and ring up too soon.She wished she had a 'nice book', something that would take her out of herself, but the bookshelf by her bed wasn't very encouraging, and only made her think what very strange books people gave as Confirmation presents.Obviously, she thought, noting the little leather-bound volumes, they were chosen for their size and colour.Browning, Housman's Shropshire Lad, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - surely the gay or despairing pagan sentiments of these authors were dangerous to a young girl embarking on her religious life? The only real book of devotion she had, suitably enough from her headmistress, told her that we are strangers and pilgrims here and must endure the heart's banishment, and she felt that she knew that anyway.CHAPTER TWELVETOM opened his eyes reluctantly.He had been dreaming that he was back in Africa, but when he woke up and found where he really was he turned over on his side again and lay staring at the wall, distempered a rather dirty cream, on which the sun was shining brightly.Too bright to last, he thought gloomily, and closed his eyes again.Outside a train rattled by.The night before, Mark and Digby had thought he needed cheering up and taking out of himself; they had spent a manly evening drinking beer, whose effects are not always particularly cheering.His life had started on its new lap now; no Catherine, a little Deirdre and a great deal of work.It was not the kind of life that made him leap out of bed eagerly in the mornings.He supposed it was too much to expect Mark or Digby to make tea and bring it to him, as a woman would have done, so he eventually crept into the kitchen and started to make it himself.Mark and Digby soon joined him, the latter singing an air from La Bohème, because, as he put it, the light-hearted squalor of their lives reminded him irresistibly of that opera.Tom and Mark were more taciturn, not approving of music in the early morning, and being unable to sing anyway.There was plenty of milk and cornflakes, not quite enough bread and only two eggs, but they made themselves some kind of a breakfast and then left to do a good day's work in various libraries.It was vacation time now and there were no seminars or classes.Tom had arranged that Deirdre should not visit him until he had got properly settled in, whatever that might entail, and so it was not until nearly a week later that she saw his new room for the first time.'Shall we meet some grim landlady on the stairs?' she asked, as they approached the house with its peeling pillars.'No, she doesn't live on the premises, luckily.There are just the three flats occupied by students of various kinds.Ours is on the first floor.''No pictures of highland cattle,' she said quickly, when they were inside the narrow hall of the flat.Tom, feeling her need for reassurance, put his arm round her shoulders.'What have you done to your hair?' he asked.'It looks like a chrysanthemum.''I had it cut.Don't you like it?''Yes, of course, don't look so worried.' He opened a door.'Well, here it is, the small back room or whatever we call it.''It is rather small, but very comfortable, I should think.' Deirdre had run over to the window to hide her dismay at the general impression of meanness and shabbiness which had overwhelmed her on entering.'And you can see the trains from the window.That's awfully continental, somehow,' Her eyes, level with his, looked appealingly at him.He, used to looking down at Catherine, found it difficult to meet her glance and turned away to fumble with some glasses and a dark-looking bottle.'Let's have a drink,' he said.'Oh, yes, lovely!'Lovely was perhaps not quite the word, she realized, as she sipped the cold sour red wine.It tasted most peculiar, as if it had gone off or something, but she wasn't sure if wine could go off.I must learn to enjoy drinking, she thought rather desperately, or at least the kind of things these people seem to enjoy, beer and funny kinds of wine.For the shameful thing was that she did like the drinks Bernard and her brother Malcolm bought for her-gin and orange or rather sweet dark sherry - the kind of drinks 'nice' suburban men regarded as being suitable for women, she thought scornfully.'Catherine seems to be all right,' said Tom, relief sounding in his tone.'Quite cheerful, in fact.''Oh, I'm glad.Has Mark or Digby seen her?''No, I rang her up this morning.''Why? Had you left something behind?'He could hear the unconscious reproach in her voice and feel it in her eyes, intently fixed on him, so he said rather irritably, 'No, but I wanted to know how she was
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