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and came only because the plaintiff took a dislike to him. She was a landlady, a rather common sort of woman who let out rooms at a high rent to labouring Irishmen, and it was germane to the case that she habitually used foul language. Primly in the box she denied this. And Keith, because he was so serious, because he flustered, because he could never let well alone, went on and on hopelessly in cross-examination, wearing out the Judge’s patience, the patience of the reporters , the spectators, even at last the plaintiff’s patience, so that she told him sharply to bugger offbecause he was getting on her tits, and he won his case. It was a victory not so much snatched from failure as made out of it; it did him no good in his career, and even, indirectly, the final harm.
    Because Keith decided to celebrate. He had an excuse—his first case won—and he had a reason—that even he, within this victory, could see defeat. “No dins tonight ,” he said to Sylvia that evening. “I didn’t make anything. We’re going out.” They took money from the housekeeping jar, and dined in Soho. It was a fine summer evening, not yet dark even after the meal was over. They window-shopped for a while after leaving the restaurant, and drifted with the crowds before taking a bus as far as Marble Arch. They walked through Hyde Park. They walked through Kensington Gardens. They walked through the summer smells of warm grass and dust. They took a winding course among the trees, hearing the traffic on the Bayswater Road only as a muted buzzing, picking their way through the lovers and others who lay together on the warm ground in the dusk. Sylvia said, “It’s funny. We’ve walked miles, and I’m wearing heels, but I’m not a bit tired.” And indeed, they moved so slowly through a dream of summer; how could they be tired?
    They had been married four and a half years, since just before Keith left Oxford, while Sylvia was teaching at a school in Cowley. They had settled down into a routine of marriage; there was no exploration in it any longer, and the imposition of each upon the other was done in more subtle ways now than in bed. But when they were back in Notting Hill, and had climbed the stairs of the house in which they rented a furnished flat, and had reached the landing of the third floor, and there before them was the door of their living-room, with thedoor of the kitchenette to the left and the bedroom to the right, he took her hand, and opened the right-hand door. And, since what one does in a dream does not matter, when she said, “Keith! Wait a minute!” he had not waited, but had gone on, langorously, without urgency, still in a summer dream, but yet on without waiting, and even to Sylvia being sensible had not mattered at that moment, and making love was for both of them like biting into a ripe peach and being bitten all at the same time, the whole delicious sensation stretched out as long as they could prolong it, all on a summer’s evening, until at last, still dreaming, they fell into a dreamless sleep.
    Sensible married couples will tell you that these are always the occasions to beware, and so it was. Once Sylvia knew that she was pregnant, there was only one decision for sensible people to make. Keith gave up the Bar, and looked for some more immediate use for his qualifications. He found a job with the Agency, and Sylvia resigned her teaching post at Richmond High School to look after their home and their child. When the child was born they called him Stephen. That was eight years ago.
    Eight years. Keith had moved from the Agency’s Marketing Department, and had become an Account Executive. His seriousness, his over-conscientiousness were assets now. Everything about Keith convinced clients that Keith thought of little else in life but their business, and they were right. At first, with his allegiance divided between a number of smaller clients, Keith had been worried; there had been too much going on in his mind