Haven’t you noticed it, dear?’

Lady Cherrell had. She smiled timidly, and asked:

‘Where is Hubert? Father will be home directly.’

‘He went out with Don, to get a leash of partidges for dinner. Ten to one he’ll forget to shoot them, and anyway they’ll be too fresh. He’s in that state of mind into which it has pleased God to call him; except that for God read the devil. He broods over that business, Mother. Only one thing would do him good, and that’s to fall in love. Can’t we find the perfect girl for him? Shall I ring for tea?’

‘Yes, dear. And this room wants fresh flowers.’

‘I’ll get them. Come along, Scaramouch!’

Passing out into September sunshine, Dinny noted a green woodpecker on the lower lawn, and thought: ‘If seven birds with seven beaks should peck for half a term, do you suppose, the lady thought, that they could find a worm?’ It was dry! All the same the zinnias were gorgeous this year; and she proceeded to pick some. They ran the gamut in her hand from deepest red through pink to lemon-yellow – handsome blossoms, but not endearing. ‘Pity,’ she thought, ‘we can’t go to some bed of modern maids and pick one for Hubert.’ She seldom showed her feelings, but she had two deep feelings not for show – one for her brother, the other for Condaford, and they were radically entwined. All the coherence of her life belonged to Condaford; she had a passion for the place which no one would have suspected from her way of talking of it, and she had a deep and jealous desire to bind her only brother to the same devotion. After all, she had been born there while it was shabby and run-down, and had survived into the period of renovation. To Hubert it had only been a holiday and leave-time perch. Dinny, though the last person in the world to talk of her roots, or to take them seriously in public, had a private faith in the Cherrells, their belongings and their works, which nothing could shake. Every Condaford beast, bird and tree, even the flowers she was plucking, were a part of her, just as were the simple folk around in their thatched cottages, and the Early-English church, where she attended without belief to speak of, and the grey Condaford dawns which she seldom saw, the moonlit, owl-haunted nights, the long sunlight over the stubble, and the scents and the sounds and the feel of the air. When she was away from home she never said she was homesick, but she was; when she was at home she never said she revelled in it, but she did. If Condaford should pass from the Cherrells, she would not moan, but would feel like a plant pulled up by its roots. Her father had for it the indifferent affection of a man whose active life had been passed elsewhere; her mother the acquiescence of one who had always done her duty by what had kept her nose to the grindstone and was not exactly hers; her sister treated it with the matter-of-fact tolerance of one who would rather be somewhere more exciting; and Hubert – what had Hubert? She really did not know. With her hands full of zinnias and her neck warm from the lingering sunshine, she returned to the drawing-room.

Her mother was standing by the tea table.

‘The train’s late,’ she said. ‘I do wish Clare wouldn’t drive so fast.’

‘I don’t see the connexion, darling.’ But she did. Mother was always fidgety when Father was behind time.

‘Mother, I’m all for Hubert sending his version to the papers.’

‘We shall see what your Father says – he’ll have talked to your Uncle Lionel.’

‘I hear the car now,’ said Dinny.

The General was followed into the room by his younger daughter. Clare was the most vivid member of the family. She had dark fine shingled hair and a pale expressive face, of which the lips were slightly brightened. The eyes were brown, with a straight and eager glance, the brow low and very white. Her expression was old for a girl of twenty, being calm and yet adventurous. She had an excellent figure and walked with an air.

‘This poor dear has had no lunch, Mother,’ she said.

‘Horrible cross-country journey, Liz. Whisky-and-soda and a biscuit’s all I’ve had since breakfast.’

‘You shall have an egg-nogg, darling,’ said Dinny, and left the room. Clare followed her.

The General kissed his wife. ‘The old boy looked very fine, my dear, though, except for Adrian, we only saw him after.