On the day of her arrival we decided that my father and Elsa should meet her at the station in Fréjus. I absolutely refused to go with them.  In desperation my father cut all the gladioli in the garden to offer her as soon as she got off the train. My only advice to him was not to allow Elsa to carry the bouquet. After they had left I went down to the beach. It was three o’clock and the heat was overpowering. I was lying on the sand half asleep when I heard Cyril’s voice. I opened my eyes: the sky was white, shimmering with heat. I made no reply, because I did not want to speak to him, nor to anyone. I was nailed to the sand by all the forces of the summer.

‘Are you dead?’ he said. ‘From over there you looked as if you had been washed up by the sea’.

I smiled. He sat down near me and my heart began to beat faster because his hand had just touched my shoulder. A dozen times during the past week my brilliant seamanship had precipitated us into the water, our arms entwined, and I had not felt the least twinge of excitement, but today the heat, my half-asleep, and an inadvertent movement had somehow broken down my defences. We looked at each other. I was getting to know him better. He was steady, and more restrained than is perhaps usual at his age. For this reason our circumstances - our unusual trio - shocked him. He was too kind or too timid to tell me, but I felt it in the oblique looks of recrimination he gave to my father. He would have liked to know that I was tormented by our situation, but I was not; in fact my only torment at that moment was the way my heart was thumping. He bent over me. I thought of the past few days, of my feeling of peace and confidence when I was with him, and I regretted the approach of that wide and rather full mouth. 

‘Cyril,’ I said ‘We were so happy…’

He kissed me gently. I looked at the sky, then saw nothing but lights bursting under my closed eyelids. The warmth, dizziness, and the taste of our first kisses continued for long moments. The sound of a motor-horn separated us like thieves. I left Cyril without a word and went up to the house.