“Pardon me, miss, I was just going to change ’em.”

Dinny held out her hand, and he took it with his old air, as if about to ‘confess’ her.

“I was passing, and thought I’d like to ask how you were.”

“Fine, thank you, miss! Hope you’ve been keeping well, and the dog?”

“Quite well, both of us. Foch likes the country.”

“Ah! Mr. Desert always thought he was a country dog.”

“Have you any news?”

“Not to say news, miss. I understand from his bank that he’s still in Siam. They forward his letters to their branch in Bangkok. His lordship was here not long ago, and I understood him to say that Mr. Desert was up a river somewhere.”

“A river!”

“The name escapes me, something with a ‘Yi’ in it, and a ‘sang’—was it? I believe it’s very ‘ot there. If I may say so, miss, you haven’t much colour considering the country. I was down home in Barnstaple at Christmas, and it did me a power of good.”

Dinny took his hand again.

“I’m very glad to have seen you, Stack.”

“Come in, miss. You’ll see I keep the room just as it was.”

Dinny followed to the doorway of the sitting-room.

“Exactly the same, Stack; he might almost be there.”

“I like to think so, miss.”

“Perhaps he is,” said Dinny. “They say we have astral bodies. Thank you.” She touched his arm, passed him, and went down the stairs. Her face quivered and was still, and she walked rapidly away.

A river! Her dream! ‘One more river!’

In Bond Street a voice said: “Dinny!” and she turned to see Fleur.

“Whither away, my dear? Haven’t seen you for an age. I’ve just been to the French pictures. Aren’t they divine? I saw Clare there with a young man in tow. Who is he?”

“A shipmate—Tony Croom.”

“More to come?”

Dinny shrugged, and, looking at her trim companion, thought: ‘I wish Fleur didn’t always go so straight to the point.’

“Any money?”

“No. He’s got a job, but it’s very slender—Mr. Muskham’s Arab mares.”

“Oh! Three hundred a year—five at the outside. That’s no good at all. You know, really, she’s making a great mistake. Jerry Corven will go far.”

Dinny said drily: “Further than Clare, anyway.”

“You mean it’s a complete breach?”

Dinny nodded. She had never been so near disliking Fleur.

“Well, Clare’s not like you. She belongs to the new order, or disorder. That’s why it’s a mistake. She’d have a much better time if she stuck to Jerry, nominally at least. I can’t see her poor.”

“She doesn’t care about money,” said Dinny coldly.

“Oh, nonsense! Money’s only being able to do what you want to do. Clare certainly cares about that.”

Dinny, who knew that this was true, said, still more coldly:

“It’s no good to try and explain.”

“My dear, there’s nothing to explain. He’s hurt her in some way, as, of course, he would. That’s no reason in the long run. That perfectly lovely Renoir—the man and woman in the box! Those people lived lives of their own—together. Why shouldn’t Clare?”

“Would you?”

Fleur gave a little shrug of her beautifully fitted shoulders.

“If Michael wasn’t such a dear. Besides—children.” Again she gave that little shrug.

Dinny thawed. “You’re a fraud, Fleur. You don’t practise what you preach.”

“My dear, my case is exceptional.”

“So is everybody’s.”

“Well, don’t let’s squabble. Michael says your new Member, Dornford, is after his own heart. They’re working together on pigs, poultry, and potatoes. A great stunt, and the right end of the stick, for once.”

“Yes, we’re going all out for pigs at Condaford. Is Uncle Lawrence doing anything at Lippinghall?”

“No. He invented the plan, so he thinks he’s done his bit. Michael will make him do more when he’s got time. Em is screamingly funny about it. How do you like Dornford?”

Asked this question twice in one morning, Dinny looked her cousin by marriage full in the face.

“He seems to me almost a paragon.”

She felt Fleur’s hand slip suddenly under her arm.

“I wish you’d marry him, Dinny dear. One doesn’t marry paragons, but I fancy one could ‘fault’ him if one tried.”

It was Dinny’s turn to give a little shrug, looking straight before her.

The third of February was a day so bland and of such spring-like texture that the quickened blood demanded adventure.

This was why Tony Croom sent an early wire and set out at noon from Bablock Hythe in his old but newly-acquired two-seater. The car was not his ‘dream,’ but it could do fifty at the pinch he liked to give it. He took the nearest bridge, ran for Abingdon, and on past Benson to Henley. There he stopped to snatch a sandwich and ‘fill up,’ and again on the bridge for a glimpse at the sunlit river softly naked below the bare woods. From there on he travelled by the dock, timing himself to reach Melton Mews at two o’clock.

Clare was not ready, having only just come in. He sat in the downstairs room, now furnished with three chairs, a small table, of quaint design, cheap owing to the slump in antiques, and an amethyst-coloured chased decanter containing sloe gin. Nearly half an hour he sat there before she came down the spiral stairs in fawn-coloured tweeds and hat, with a calfskin fur coat over her arm.

“Well, my dear! Sorry to have kept you. Where are we going?”

“I thought you might care to have a look at Bablock Hythe. Then we might come back through Oxford, have high tea there, wander about a bit among the colleges, and be back here before eleven. That do?”

“Perfect. And where will you sleep?”

“I? Oh! tool along home again. I’d be there by one.”

“Poor Tony! A hard day!”

“Oh! Not two hundred and fifty miles. You won’t want your fur on yet, the car doesn’t open—worse luck.”

They passed out at the westward mouth of the mews, narrowly missing a motor cyclist, and slid on towards the Park.

“She goes well, Tony.”

“Yes, she’s an easy old thing, but I always feel she might bust at any moment. Stapylton gave her a terrible doing. And I don’t like a light-coloured car.”

Clare leaned back, by the smile on her lips she was enjoying herself.

There was little conversation on that, the first long drive they had taken together. Both had the youthful love of speed, and young Croom got every ounce out of the car that the traffic would permit. They reached the last crossing of the river under two hours.

“Here’s the inn where I dig,” he said presently. “Would you like tea?”

“Not wise, my dear. When I’ve seen the boxes and paddocks, we’ll get out of here to where you’re not known.”

“I must just show you the river.”

Through its poplars and willow trees the white way of the river gleamed, faintly goldened by the sunken sun. They got out to look. The lamb’s tails on the hazels were very forward.

Clare twisted off a spray.

“False spring. There’s a lot to come before the real spring yet.”

A current of chilly air came stealing down the river, and mist could be seen rising on the meadows beyond.

“Only a ferry here, then, Tony?”

“Yes, and a short cut into Oxford the other side, about five miles. I’ve walked it once or twice: rather nice.”

“When the blossom and meadow flowers come, it’ll be jolly. Come along! Just show me where the paddocks lie, and we’ll get on to Oxford.”

They got back into the car.

“Won’t you see the boxes?”

She shook her head.

“I’ll wait till the mares are here. There’s a subtle distinction between your bringing me to look at boxes and my coming to look at mares. Are they really from Nejd?”

“So Muskham swears. I shall believe or not when I’ve seen the syces in charge of them.”

“What colour?”

“Two bays and a chestnut.”

The three paddocks sloped slightly towards the river and were sheltered by a long spinney.