Dame Peggy Ashcroftís Beth lives entirely in the transfiguring memory of an encounter she had once had with an unnamed man by the sea shore. Against the impregnable armour with this clothes her the common chatter of her rough but not unkindly husband beats in vain, and the confession of unfaithfulness on which he sets regretful store is powerless to darken even by a shade or for a moment the brilliant light of her remembered joy.