“Mother’s sleepy,” said Ronny to Mary. “I can see the white beneath the blue in her eyes. Say Mary, did you know that when a person sleeps their eyes roll right up in their heads?”

“You mustn’t speak about your mother like that,” said Mary.

“When you’re dead you only stare,” continued Ronny, “and your eyes grow hard as stones. That’s what Jeremy says anyway. Shalimar loves the eyes of dead knights to eat and that’s what a poem says, and do you know what Flo says? Do you mother?” A frown came into Ronny’s face and he touched his mother softly and almost pleadingly on the arm, one of those anxious, timid touches which children use and which are often ignored.

Grace roused herself irritably. “No I don’t know what Flo says and I don’t know who Flo is, but I do know that you are being tiresome. You meet me with an ugly tattoo mark on your chest which you’ll be sorry for one day. When I laugh at it, you have the nerve to sulk. Well, I had to have some reaction, didn’t I?” She spread her little hands and opened her blue eyes.

“Yes, but it’s about the tattooing that Flo said this thing,” Ronny said eagerly.

Mary had left the room by now to speak to her husband, and Grace, feeling uneasy, got up and started wandering about from object to object. Behind her back Ronny’s voice continued:

“You see, Flo says the only sure thing to take tattoo marks out is——” But Ronny found he could not say it after all. The idea was laughable, and he skipped out of the room as light as down.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stevens prepared for the arrival of Mrs. Villars by putting away the few last, genteel relics which he had kept so far for memory’s sake. There was, for instance, a lace antimacassar on his mother’s special chair. It was spotless of course, but frayed slightly by the hard, tight knot of her hair. He folded it carefully, feeling that curious mixture of love and distaste which was beginning to come whenever he handled these maternal things. He removed as well the semi-religious sampler from above the mantle, and the abalone shell from before the door. The shell had been his mother’s ideal of beauty. It had taken that place in her soul which may be filled by the various artistic creations of man. Stevens hated the shell worse than anything else. He hated it even more bitterly because he still found it so beautiful and it was such bad taste. He put it in the coat closet where it remained in the darkness what it had always been: curled, rosy, shining, fair, murmuring about the sea whose miracle it was.

When Grace arrived in Jeremy’s Ford, Stevens was polishing the mirror in the front hall with newspaper. He had his shirt sleeves rolled back over his thin arms and the afternoon heat had made his blond hair curly. He was startled by Grace, for the radio was on in the next room and he did not hear her coming. She stood in the doorway a moment, very small in her short, full skirts and tight bodice, like a doll with real golden hair. Stevens, who was balancing on a chair, almost fell off it.

“Hello,” she said. “You asked me to come so I came.”

He jumped down with a light movement that was one of his graces. Thus they were both pleased, as two adults must be when they catch each other in mutually youthful attitudes.

“Won’t you come in?” he asked. “I hardly dare think you are Ronny’s mother for you don’t look old enough.”

She moved towards him with her birdlike steps and gave him her bird hand. Then they went into the living room and in the different light from his mauve walls, Stevens saw that Grace was not as young as all that. Grace, for her part, saw a rather pallid man whose boyishness had lasted only a moment. But because of their first view they were smiling amicably.

“Before our talk,” he said, “I shall order coffee for you. Will you have it iced?” He was proud of being able to ring for the servant even though she was fat and wore no uniform other than an apron.

“Yes,” he continued when they were settled, “I really did think we should have a talk.”

Grace was looking around the room shrewdly, drawing her summer gloves through her hands. The gloves were made of blue and white striped cotton, very pretty and fresh so that the eye followed them as they passed between her fingers. Stevens admired her immensely and could not help but compare her to Lucy, whose hands were large, red and always moist.

“I can see you are an artistic young man, Mr. Stevens,” observed Grace, looking at the prints on the walls and at the colour tone of the room.

He breathed deeply: “Ah Mrs. Villars, it’s rare, for anyone to notice things like that in Star Harbour.”

“I was born in a place very like Star Harbour,” said Grace, “and even now I shudder at the narrowness of my escape.” Then she leaned forward and said coaxingly: “I didn’t mean that as a slight, you know. It’s different for a man. A man can make his own world anywhere, as I see you have done.” The caress in her voice and its emphasis when she said ‘man’ sent a faint chord to vibrating in Stevens’ body. He was flattered. His subdued virility stirred.

They began to talk about Ronny, but Stevens’ obvious concern made Grace frown. “My,” she said, “you do seem to care a great deal.”

“It’s my profession to care,” retorted Stevens.

Grace looked down at her hands with a faint smile. What a prissy creature! She wondered if it would be amusing to disturb him. After all here she was, bound to wait over until the Fourth of July. A little romance would do the tutor good, and when had it ever harmed Grace Villars? Besides, and also just for fun, she reminded herself, it would be a satisfaction to rout this girl over whom everyone seemed so upset, this June who was intruding in her life. Grace was always courageous when faced with others of her sex and had never been afraid of women, old or young. She was like one of those small, fierce, petted dogs who will rush yapping up to a wolf.

The iced coffee arrived and Grace sipped it slowly, looking at Stevens over the rim of her glass. “I have sent the man Jeremy home,” she stated.

“Oh I’ll be delighted to take you home, Mrs. Villars. You see I was supposed to have a scout meeting this afternoon but when you called that you were coming I put it off. I thought our meeting much more important.” He blushed and added hastily: “I mean the subject of our meeting.”

Grace gave her clearest laugh, showing her little, white teeth. Then she said: “I just can’t seem to picture you as a boy scout. You look such a man of the world, Mr. James Stevens.”

At once Stevens saw that nothing was more absurd than a boy scout and with this realization came another: Grace Villars came from the very world he wished to inhabit. She came from the world of first nights and celebrities and clubs and amusing scandals. She smelt of those things. They were in her eyes, her manner, the way in which she pulled her gloves through her fingers. Stevens had always known such a world existed; that if one could only find the right entrance there was a brilliant, glamorous life behind the every day one. Grace Villars made it seem obtainable.

Had Stevens but known it, this was the element which made Grace fascinating to many young men more or less of his type. She had got away from a humdrum beginning and therefore could show them how to do so as well. Or at least so they hoped.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” complained Grace. “You make me think something’s gone wrong with my face.”

As a matter of fact she had a slight coffee mustache from the rim of her glass. Stevens choked with embarrassment, especially as she reached for her purse and took out her compact.

“You might have told me!” she cried, pouting with her eyes, but not at all displeased. The light brown mark curving from each side of her upper lip gave her the air of a little girl masquerading as a bandit. It pointed up her blond, merry looks. It was just the sort of thing older men found so cute—or used to find. She took her time to wipe it off, shaking out her perfumed handkerchief.

Stevens thought her stained mouth vaguely revolting and the idea of coffee mixing with her lipstick on the handkerchief offended his fastidious nature. Yet, all the time, she was holding the world out to him, a shining ball which it would soon be too late to seize.

“I must say I agree with you about June Grey,” said Grace. “She sounds an unattractive creature. I’m surprised at Ronny. It isn’t like his—father.” She looked at him wickedly from the corners of her eyes and he comprehended that for her all this was a game. The curious weight that had been on his spirit lifted. It was a game after all, not a thing of moment or a thing of pain.

“Let’s take her down a peg,” suggested Grace.

“You make it sound such fun to do,” he said impulsively, showing his boyish smile.

“I can’t imagine what kind of women populate Star Harbour,” parried Grace, “you seem to have things to learn.”

Stevens wished he could say: “Won’t you teach me?” but he could not bring himself to do it. Was she really throwing him a challenge? And if so, would he have the courage to accept? He tried to read a direction in her eyes and found them only blue and bold.

“Were you aware of the fact, Mr. Stevens, that Ronny has got himself tattooed?” asked Grace.

“Tattooed! How do you mean?”

“Yes, he has a heart tattooed on his chest and the girl’s name is tattooed underneath it.”

Stevens actually turned pale so that his skin showed a sparse sprinkling of freckles. The idea filled him with horror and drowned out all the previous lightness of their conversation. He pictured Ronny then with his olive skin, the black fall of his hair, the sweet animal glitter of his eyes.

“My God,” he cried, “I know when he did it!” And this knowledge caused him the most unhappiness of all.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Flo was revolving slowly around and around the dance hall. He did not look as though he were enjoying himself, but he had been here for an hour, turning and shuffling. His partner was a girl whose bulk seemed to be melting in the heat of the room. Small spirals of black hair fell from a white parting and left traces of oil on her cheeks. Her eyes, obscured by fat, roved moodily this way and that because, aside from Flo, no one ever asked her to dance. Her breath was acid from constant candy eating and there was a black, glandular mustache on her upper lip.

Flo could not explain why nearly every week he wore his shoes out with such a creature, nor why he sometimes took her to the “Arabella” afterwards. She was not a human being for Flo at all, and in her turn she despised him.

Jeremy, passing by the open door of the harbour dance hall, saw the couple wheeling grotesquely across his line of vision. He had come to town partly to see Flo, but now, finding him occupied, went on to the food shop next door to look in on Eddie.

Jeremy had known Eddie for ten years. So had Walsh, for Eddie had made himself useful to the boathouse. He had often rowed into its water doorway and had unloaded on its cement quays liquor and other contraband stuff. In those days Jeremy too, whenever he had an evening free, had come to the port to drink and to comfort himself with the spectacle of active life. Then he had come less often. The speedboats had gone. The peninsula with its lonely woods had closed him in.

Entering SNACKS, he found it almost empty. Most people who wanted to eat went to a new place around the corner and those who wished to drink went to a bar. Only Eddie, Flo, the barber and a few others, stubbornly clinging to illicit ways, came here with flasks to eat and drink at the same time. This group considered itself apart, and only after close scrutiny would they accept a newcomer into their midst.

Eddie was there now, holding forth to the barber on past adventures in his soft voice. For all his ugly, thick, warty features, there was an attraction about the man. He seemed to caress the ears of his listeners and had a knack of making a brutal episode sound almost tender.

He looked up as Jeremy appeared. “Hello Jeremy. How’s tricks? Still worrying about all those worms?”