“I hope you’ll tell her that.”

“I’ll take her through her evidence, and cross-examine her on it. But one can’t tell the line Brough will take.”

“Shall you be in court yourself?”

“If I can, but the odds are I shan’t be free.”

“How long will it last?”

“More than a day, I’m afraid.”

Dinny sighed.

“Poor Dad! Has Clare got a good man?”

“Yes—Instone, very much hampered by her refusal to talk about Ceylon.”

“That’s definite, you know. She won’t.”

“I like her for it, but I’m afraid it’s fatal.”

“So be it!” said Dinny: “I want her free. The person most to be pitied is Tony Croom.”

“Why?”

“He’s the only one of the three in love.”

“I see,” said Dornford, and was silent. Dinny felt sorry.

“Would you care for a walk?”

“Simply love it!”

“We’ll go up through the woods, and I’ll show you where the Cherrell killed the boar and won the de Campfort—our heraldic myth. Had you any family legend in Shropshire?”

“Yes, but the place has gone—sold when my father died; six of us and no money.”

“Oh!” said Dinny, “horrible when families are uprooted.”

Dornford smiled.

“Live donkeys are better than dead lions.”

While they were going up through the coverts he talked about his new house, subtly ‘pumping’ her for expressions of her taste.

They came out into a sunken roadway leading on to a thorn-bush-covered down.

“Here’s the place. Virgin forest then, no doubt. We used to picnic here as children.”

Dornford took a deep breath. “Real English view—nothing spectacular, but no end good.”

“Lovable.”

“That’s the word.”

He spread his raincoat on the bank. “Sit down and let’s have a smoke.”

Dinny sat down.

“Come on part of it yourself, the ground’s not too dry.”

While he sat there, with his hands hugging his knees and his pipe fuming gently, she thought: ‘The most self-controlled man I ever came across, and the gentlest, except Uncle Adrian.’

“If only a boar would come along,” he said, “it would be prime!”

“Member of Parliament kills boar on spur of Chilterns,” murmured Dinny, but did not add: “Wins lady.”

“Wind’s off the gorse. Another three weeks and it’ll be green down there. Pick of the year—this, or the Indian summer, I never know. And yours, Dinny?”

“Blossom time.”

“Um; and harvest. This ought to be glorious then—quite a lot of cornland.”

“It was just ripe when the war broke out. We came up picnicking two days before, and stayed till the moon rose. How much do you think people really fought for England, Mr. Dornford?”

“Practically all—for some nook or other of it; many just for the streets, and buses, and smell of fried fish. I fought mainly, I think, for Shrewsbury and Oxford. But Eustace is my name.”

“I’ll remember. We’d better go down now, or we shall be late for tea.”

And, all the way home, they contended with birds’ songs and the names of plants.

“Thanks for my treat,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed it, too.”

That walk had, indeed, a curiously soothing effect on Dinny. So, she could talk with him without question of love-making.

Bank holiday was sou’-westerly. Dornford spent a quiet hour with Clare over her evidence, and then went riding with her in the rain. Dinny’s morning went in arranging for spring cleaning and the chintzing of the furniture while the family were up in town. Her mother and father were to stay at Mount Street, she and Clare with Fleur. In the afternoon she pottered with the General round the new pigsties, progressing as slowly as a local builder, anxious to keep his men in work, could make them. She was not alone again with Dornford until after tea.

“Well,” he said, “I think your sister will do, if she keeps her temper.”

“Clare can be very cutting.”

“Yes, and there’s an underlying sentiment among lawyers against being cut up by outsiders in each other’s presence; even judges have it.”

“They won’t find her a ‘butterfly on the wheel.’”

“It’s no good getting up against institutions, you know; they carry too many guns.”

“Oh! well,” said Dinny, with a sigh, “it’s on the knees of the gods.”

“Which are deuced slippery. Could I have a photograph of you, preferably as a little girl?”

“I’ll see what we’ve got—I’m afraid only snaps; but I think there’s one where my nose doesn’t turn up too much.”

She went to a cabinet, took a drawer out bodily, and put it on the covered billiard table.

“The family snap-hoard—choose!”

He stood at her side and they turned them over.

“I took most of them, so there aren’t many of me.”

“Is that your brother?”

“Yes, and this—just before he went to the war. This is Clare the week before she was married. Here’s one of me, with some hair. Dad took that when he came home, the spring after the war.”

“When you were thirteen?”

“Fourteen nearly. It’s supposed to be like Joan of Arc being taken in by voices.”

“It’s lovely. I shall get it enlarged.”

He held it to the light. The figure was turned three quarters, and the face lifted to the branches of a fruit tree in blossom. The whole of the little picture was very much alive; the sun having fallen on the blossom and on Dinny’s hair, which hung to her waist.

“Mark the rapt look,” she said; “there must have been a cat up the tree.”

He put it into his pocket and returned to the table.

“And this?” he said: “Could I have this too?”

The snap was one of her a little older, but still with her hair uncut, full face, hands clasped in front, head a little down and eyes looking up.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was there.” It was the counterpart of one she had sent to Wilfrid.

Dornford nodded; and she realised that in some uncanny way he knew why. Seized with compunction, she said:

“Oh! yes, you can. It doesn’t matter, now.” And she put it into his hand…

After Dornford and Clare had left on Tuesday morning, Dinny studied a map, took the car and set out for Bablock Hythe. She did not care for driving, but she was moved by the thought of Tony Croom deprived of his week-end glimpse of Clare. The twenty-five miles took her well over an hour. At the inn she was told that he would be at his cottage, and, leaving the car, she walked over. He was in shirt-sleeves distempering the walls of the low, timbered sitting-room. From the doorway she could see the pipe wobble in his mouth.

“Anything wrong with Clare?” he said at once.

“Nothing whatever. I just thought I’d like to have a look at your habitat.”

“How terribly nice of you! I’m doing a job of work.”

“Clearly.”

“Clare likes duck’s-egg green; this is the nearest I can get to it.”

“It goes splendidly with the beams.”

Young Croom said, looking straight before him, “I can’t believe I’ll ever get her here, but I can’t help pretending; otherwise the sand would be clean out of my dolly.”

Dinny put her hand on his sleeve.

“You’re not going to lose your job. I’ve seen Jack Muskham.”

“Already? You’re marvellous. I’ll just wash off and get my coat on, and show you round.”

Dinny waited in the doorway where a streak of sunlight fell. The two cottages, knocked into one, still had their ramblers, wistaria, and thatched roof. It would be very pretty.

“Now,” said young Croom. “The boxes are all finished, and the paddocks have got their water. In fact, we only want the animals; but they’re not to be here till May. Taking no risks. Well, I’d rather have this case over first. You’ve come from Condaford?”

“Yes. Clare went back this morning. She would have sent her love, but she didn’t know I was coming.”

“Why DID you come?” said young Croom bluntly.

“Fellow feeling.”

He thrust his arm within hers.

“Yes. So sorry! Do you find,” he added suddenly, “that thinking of other people suffering helps?”