Nor was there ever any necessity for real heart-to-heart encounters.

One could break away into irony--as indeed he often had to.

But the real trouble with June was that she had never appealed to his aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with her red-gold hair and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the Berserker in her spirit.

It was very different with Holly, soft and quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her somewhere.

He watched this younger daughter of his through the duckling stage with extraordinary interest.