Later, back in his hotel room, he thought about her. He was bound to meet her tomorrow, of that there was no doubt. As he went to bed he remembered that she had only recently left boarding-school, that she had been a schoolgirl just like his own daughter – and he remembered how much hesitancy, how much awkwardness there was in her laughter, in the way she talked to a stranger – it must have been the very first time in her life that she had been on her own, in such surroundings, where men followed her, eyed her and spoke to her with one secret aim in mind, which she could hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, frail neck, her beautiful grey eyes.

‘Still, there’s something pathetic about her,’ he thought as he fell asleep.