The Heat of the Day

Stella remembers meeting her lover, Robert, two years earlier. He had come to the War Office about a knee injury that ended his active army service. She thinks about the experience of wartime London and its strange effect on personal relationships and the passage of time. She remembers that a bombing occurred during her first conversation with Robert. She thinks about their closeness, and how they live together in “every way but that of sharing a roof” (107).

When they meet a few days after Roderick’s departure, Stella tells Robert about Harrison’s visit. She mentions Harrison’s claim about Robert only very obliquely, and he brushes it off.

Stella and Robert travel to the country for the day to visit Robert’s mother. They meet his older sister, Ernestine, his niece and nephew (the children of his second sister, Amabelle), and his mother, Mrs. Kelway. They share an awkward afternoon tea, and Robert takes Stella on a tour of the house. He tells her, “stop thinking you’re making a bad impression; I assure you you’re making no impression at all” (127).

They go to his room, and discuss the fact that his mother and Ernestine have hung a large number of pictures of Robert in it.