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enough. ‘I was a liability to him before I left the island, a constant threat to his authority, and a heartache for Mama. I realised that later when I had managed to curb the temper I had inherited from my own father. We Cypriots are all alike, you know, one minute vivacious and full of the joy of living, the next confined to the depths, like Hades in the Underworld.’
    ‘I never saw you “confined to the depths”,’ she told him.
    ‘I have been, nevertheless, but at the age of twenty one recovers quickly. You see,’ he added slowly, ‘I had this overpowering desire to improve myself. Can you understand that or are you determined to be stubborn?’
    ‘If you mean that you now have a great deal of money perhaps I should accept it as an improvement, but it certainly can’t mean anything to us now. When we needed you most you weren’t there.’
    ‘I regret that, but I could hardly help it since I didn’t hear about your father’s death until recently.’
    ‘And by then you were well on your way to the success you needed,’ she suggested, laying out two cups and saucers on a tray. ‘Andreas, you don’t need to explain to us. I’m sure we understand.’
    t At least, Mama does,’ he decided, picking up the tray. ‘You have only set out two cups. Does that mean you refuse to join us?’
    She added a bowl of sugar and a cream jug to his burden.
    I haven t got the time,’ she said. ‘I generally drink mine in the kitchen.’
    ‘Who does the cooking?’ he asked, pausing at the swing door. ‘Don’t tell me you accomplish that, too.’
    ‘We have an excellent chef who comes in from Limassol each day,’ she told him remotely. ‘You will sample his culinary expertise if you intend to stay for lunch.
    He took up her challenge immediately. ‘That has already been settled,’ he pointed out. ‘I have your mother’s invitation.’
    ‘We serve it in the terrace room at one o’clock—early because some of our English guests like to have a long afternoon at their disposal to bask in the sun or go sightseeing. 1 don’t think they can quite reconcile themselves to no twilight, you see, and everything getting dark around six o’clock.’
    When he had gone, the doors whispering shut behind him, she stood by the table looking down at its immaculate white surface for a long time, watching the procession of the past filing before her eyes in heartrending detail, seeing the years between his abrupt departure from Cyprus and his return in all their cruel reality, the uncertainty and the worry and the final realisation that they would have to give up their beloved home. It had come as a shock to both her mother and herself that George Rossides had died practically penniless with nothing of value to leave them but the Villa Severus itself. That and the equivalent of a few thousand pounds, most of which had been used to settle his considerable debts, had been the full amount of their benefit, and they had to find a reasonable solution to the future. Her own future as well as her mother’s, Anna realised, because she had never taken up a profession. Vaguely she had thought about teaching, but the blow had fallen before that day arrived. At fifteen she had been happy and carefree, like most of her school companions; at sixteen she had been faced with a decision which had concerned them both. Further education was out of the question as far as she was concerned, although it was many weeks before Dorothy Rossides would concede the fact.
    ‘If only we had Andreas to advise us!’ her mother had said more than once, but Andreas had gone, feathering his own nest in a foreign land.
    The bleak thought persisted until Francis Previn pushed the swing doors ahead of him, making his customary entrance. Involuntarily she glanced at the clock, a suggestion which did not escape his watchful eye.
    ‘How can I possibly arrive on time when the Market is in turmoil today, as every day! I stand for one whole hour waiting for a lost