Surprised by his surprise, Bernard nodded. There was a silence. The Director leaned back in his chair, frowning. "How long ago was it?" he said, speaking more to himself than to Bernard. "Twenty years, I suppose. Nearer twenty-five. I must have been your age..." He sighed and shook his head. Bernard felt extremely uncomfortable. A man so conventional, so scrupulously correct as the Director-and to commit so gross a solecism! lt made him want to hide his face, to run out of the room. Not that he himself saw anything intrinsically objectionable in people talking about the remote past; that was one of those hypnopaedic prejudices he had (so he imagined) completely got rid of. What made him feel shy was the knowledge that the Director disapproved-disapproved and yet had been betrayed into doing the forbidden thing. Under what inward compulsion?