Eight
How alike, Hilary thought to herself, all airports were! They had a strangeanonymity about them. They were all at some distance from the town orcity they served, and in consequence you had a queer, stateless feeling ofexisting nowhere. You could fly from London to Madrid, to Rome, to Istan-bul, to Cairo, to anywhere you liked, and if your journey was a throughone by air, you would never have the faintest idea of what any of these cit-ies looked like! If you caught a glimpse of them from the air, they wereonly a kind of glorified¹ map, something built with a child’s box of bricks.
And why, she thought vexedly, looking round her, does one always haveto be at these places so much too early?
They had spent nearly half an hour in the waiting room. Mrs. CalvinBaker, who had decided³ to accompany Hilary to Marrakesh, had beentalking non- stop ever since their arrival. Hilary had answered almostmechanically. But now she realized that the flow had been diverted. Mrs.
Baker² had now switched her attention to two other travellers who weresitting near her. They were both tall, fair young men. One an Americanwith a broad, friendly grin, the other a rather solemn-looking Dane orNorwegian. The Dane talked heavily, slowly, and rather pedantically⁴ incareful English. The American was clearly delighted to find another Amer-ican traveller. Presently, in conscientious⁵ fashion, Mrs. Calvin Bakerturned to Hilary.
“Mr.—? I’d like to have you know my friend, Mrs. Betterton.”
“Andrew Peters—Andy to my friends.”
The other young man rose to his feet, bowed rather stiffly and said,“Torquil Ericsson.”
“So now we’re all acquainted,” said Mrs. Baker happily. “Are we all go-ing to Marrakesh? It’s my friend’s first visit there—”
“I, too,” said Ericsson. “I, too, for the first time go.”
“That goes for me, too,” said Peters.
The loudspeaker was suddenly switched on and a hoarse⁶ announcementin French was made. The words were barely distinguishable but it ap-peared to be their summons to the plane.

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