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Caro had brought it from Palermo.
    Saying "May I?", Christian took it up and read aloud, turning the disc to decipher: "Chi d'invidia campa, disperato muore. Who lives—
    if I'm right?—in envy, dies in despair." He put it back on the table.
    The angel had been charming; the plate had a sharper edge.
    How happy he was, all the same. Christian, who often feared to find himself in obscure conditions, in a monochrome where his colours might not prove fast. Given the present circumstances—the furnished room, the brute fact of Sydney, the desk at Harrods, and the examination already as good as failed—this should now have been overwhelmingly the case. But was not, by any means.
    These women provided something new to Christian—a clear perception unmingled with suspiciousness. Their distinction was not only their beauty and their way with one another, their crying need of a rescue for which they made no appeal whatever; but a high humorous candour for which—he could frame it no other way
    —they would be willing to sacrifice.
    Christian was happy. Grace had done that for him. She will make you very happy.
    The degree of good faith being required of him amounted to a mild abandon, but he did not want to botch this afternoon. His chances in life seemed bound up with the colours of girls' dresses, the streaks of curtain at windows, a painted angel; and even with a tea-cosy of crocheted orange, felted with handling, that said everything about the landlord. Turned to him, there were the two long figures in light. He would have liked to think, Sargent; but feared something more disruptive, like Vermeer.
    There were intervals when he knew that he was the one in need of rescue, that Grace might easily do better than take up with him, and that Caro would pass the examination ahead of all the rest. But health was hard to maintain: self-importance flickered up like fever.
    There was something else now, with the three of theoi in that room, some event or at least a moment. Whatever this was, the excitement in it was displacing the calm, the charm. It was quickly past. Christian knew that Grace was as much as he could manage; she was already a departure, though of his own unexpected choosing. Caro was beyond his means. He was like a cabinet minister faced with a capital decision. On the brink of the sofa he renounced any possibility of Caro. There was deliverance in this, and a flow of propitiatory emotion towards Grace.
    Now that Caro had proved too much for him, he almost disliked her.
    Grace was telling about a customer who had sent back a dead canary in a box, for refund. Christian must soon make himself clear.
    A third meeting would be commitment of a kind, to a chain of new circumstances.
    "And got it back stuffed, from Taxidermy, with a bill for five guineas!"
    Christian was laughing out loud with relief. He could hear this laughter of his that showed what he could do when given a chance.
    In his laughter it was as if he already took Grace in his arms.
    She came downstairs to see him out. Dora, now in sight along the street, performed her usual function of bringing matters to a head. He asked Grace to dine with him during the week, and she made an arrangement for Wednesday. They repeated time and place like vows, safe forever from the sharp heels of Dora on the path.
    Christian quite strongly did not want to see Dora, but waited to greet her and hoped for credit from Grace. Dora's hair was netted in a veiling cap, like thatch under wire. She dropped her key, and bumped her head on Christian's as they both bent down for it. This in turn gave rise to false little gasps of overdone apology. Christian knew the type. She was one of those persons who will squeeze into the same partition of a revolving door with you, on the pretext of causing less trouble.
    By the time he got home he had forgotten Caro. It was years before he seriously considered her again, or before she became the object of another cabinet-level review. Long before