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its forward-pointing hand—
    And here was the top coming at them, behind them – and still the road straight as ever, and still another green softly rising hill ahead!
    That was pretty, he thought, glancing out of the corner of his eye at a tiny cottage, a vast flame-tree, a green garden with children in it. And a peach tree in blossom. Funny that he’d never thought of putting in peach trees at Ballool? Milly might like it better if—
    But of course, naturally, she did like it. Rotten damp little place that one near the cemetery. No conveniences. She had those now. Hot-water service, all the electric gadgets you could buy – more comforts than she’d ever had even at her wonderful Wondabyne! And here was another of those damn hills!
    He said crossly:
    â€œHow long does
this
go on?”
    Millicent said, peering at him round the edge of her veil:
    â€œWell, dear, it’s like that rhyme of Hilaire Belloc’s:
    â€œThe road went up,
    The road went down,
    And there the matter ended it.”
    But presently she added comfortingly: “Not
all
the way. Wait till we get on to the mountains.”
    He snapped:
    â€œI know the mountains as well as you do. Been there by train dozens of times.”
    She said: “Of course,darling, I’d forgotten,” and patted his knee.
2
    So she thought about it now, and wondered how it could happen that a man like Tom should be so – so
circular
? He was rather like one of those dear, busy toy trains you have when you’re little, she reflected, the ones that run round and round and round and bluff themselves that they’re getting somewhere. And it was odd that Tom should be like that, because he wasn’t really unimaginative. Every now and then he did something, said something which made you feel that he’d got on to the circular track by mistake – that if some one or something could juggle with the what-do-you-call-thems? – joints? – points, yes, that was it – and straighten the line out he’d be off with a rattle and a roar, whistling and puffing and spouting steam—
    Well, you’d think the war might have done that, but it hadn’t. He’d gone and he’d come back, and immediately, except for Colin, it was as if the war had never been. But that, probably, was because he’d had to leave things unfinished when he went, and he did so hate unfinished things. Yes, she knew well enoughthough he hadn’t actually told her, that until he’d provided her with every comfort and convenience that money could buy he wouldn’t even look up from his unsparing self-imposed slavery.
    Oh, the poor darling! Impossible to tell him how little she cared for anything beyond a quite modest and reasonable comfort. Worse than impossible – harmful, dangerous. Because that was the test he’d set himself right from the day of their lovely, ridiculous elopement – to outdo her old life in happiness, her old home in comfort, her old possessions in opulence! A test he wouldn’t ever let himself forget, not even, as it should have been forgotten, in those fairy-tale days when they’d lived like a pair of babes in a wood of unbelievable peach blossoms!
    And the result had been, ironically and pathetically enough, that no home she had ever shared with him had seemed to her as truly home as Wondabyne. That, of course, she hoped he didn’t know. It was one of the freakish practical jokes Life played sometimes, jokes not in the best of taste, which one tried to ignore. But it had been, always, a kind of restless pilgrimage with, God help us, Ballool for its Mecca! “This will do for the present, Milly. We’ll get something better later.” So they had got something better. And still better. And now, at fifty-seven, they were in the best at last, and the best was—
    Oh, rubbish, rubbish! The best was beautiful! Not because, as Tom seemed to think, it had three bathrooms and