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point of the compass. If we were behaving unconventionally she did not notice it. Anyway, it wasn’t that kind of way I was holding her. I wanted to show her what I saw.
    â€œHere,” I said, “here you see where it sweeps down to the sea and where the rocks show out there. There’s a town between us and that but we can’t see it because of the hills bulging out farther down the slope. And then you can look a third way, to a vague foresty valley. Do you see now if you cut down trees and make big vistas and clear this space round the house, do you see what a beautiful house you could have here? You wouldn’t site it where the old one is. You’d go about fifty—a hundred yards to the right, here. This is where you could have a house, a wonderful house. A house built by an architect who’s a genius.”
    â€œDo you know any architects who are geniuses?” She sounded doubtful.
    â€œI know one,” I said.
    Then I started telling her about Santonix. We sat down side by side on a fallen tree and I talked. Yes, I talked to that slender woodland girl whom I’d never seen before and I put all I had into what I was telling her. I told her the dream that one could build up.
    â€œIt won’t happen,” I said, “I know that. It couldn’t happen. But think. Think into it just like I’m thinking into it. There we’d cut the trees and there we’d open up, and we’d plant things, rhododendrons and azaleas, and my friend Santonix would come. He’d cough a good deal because I think he’s dying of consumption or something but he could do it. He could do it before he died. He could build the most wonderful house. You don’t know what his houses are like. He builds them for very rich people and they have to be people who want the right thing. I don’t mean the right thing in the conventional sense. Things people who want a dream come true want. Something wonderful.”
    â€œI’d want a house like that,” said Ellie. “You make me see it, feel it…Yes, this would be a lovely place to live. Everything one has dreamed of come true. One could live here and be free, not hampered, not tied round by people pushing you into doing everything you don’t want, keeping you from doing anything you do want. Oh I am so sick of my life and the people who are round me and everything! ”
    That’s the way it began, Ellie and I together. Me with my dreams and she with her revolt against her life. We stopped talking and looked at each other.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” she said.
    â€œMike Rogers,” I said. “Michael Rogers,” I amended. “What’s yours?”
    â€œFenella.” She hesitated and then said, “Fenella Goodman,” looking at me with a rather troubled expression.
    This didn’t seem to take us much further but we went on looking at each other. We both wanted to see each other again—but just for the moment we didn’t know how to set about it.

Five
    W ell, that’s how it began between Ellie and myself. It didn’t really go along so very quickly, because we both had our secrets. Both had things we wanted to keep from the other and so we couldn’t tell each other as much about ourselves as we might have done, and that kept bringing us up sharp, as it were, against a kind of barrier. We couldn’t bring things into the open and say, “When shall we meet again? Where can I find you? Where do you live?” Because, you see, if you ask the other person that, they’d expect you to tell the same.
    Fenella looked apprehensive when she gave me her name. So much so that I thought for a moment that it mightn’t be her real name. I almost thought that she might have made it up! But of course I knew that that was impossible. I’d given her my real name.
    We didn’t know quite how to take leave of each other that day. It was awkward. It had become cold