She broke in, ‘Ruddy, we think alike. I’ve got something to show you too. The sketches are just here in my bag. Is that your poem? Let me take it so I can read it later, with proper attention. I’m thrilled,’ she added, undoing the straps on her satchel, ‘I’ve heard about the most extraordinary painting Edouard Manet’s been working on, someone’s taking me to his studio to see it next week. It shows a bar, with mirrors –’ She slid his envelope into the pocket behind her pastel crayons.
He’d done it. His formal proposal was in her hands. And hadn’t she as good as accepted?
*
It was late afternoon towards the end of the summer term. Rud leaned back in the wide Windsor armchair that stood across from the desk in the Head’s library and removed his spectacles. He wiped them with great delibera
