She followed him and they sat down together on a garden seat with the basket of roses at their feet. He took her by the wrist and stripped the heavy glove off her hand. “Now, tell me,” he demanded, “do you love me?”

“You needn’t bellow it at me like that. Yes, I do.”

“Rose, darling! I was so panicked you’d say you didn’t.”

“Please listen, Mark. You’re not going to agree with a syllable of this, but please listen.”

“All right. I know what it’s going to be but… all right.”

“You can see what it’s like here. I mean the domestic set-up. You must have seen for yourself how much difference it makes to Daddy my being on tap.”

“You are so funny when you use colloquialisms… a little girl shutting her eyes and firing off a pop-gun. All right; your father likes to have you about. So he well might and so he still would if we married. We’d probably live half our time at Nunspardon.”

“It’s much more than that.” Rose hesitated. She had drawn away from him and sat with her hands pressed together between her knees. She wore a long house-dress. Her hair was drawn back into a knot at the base of her neck, but a single fine strand had escaped and shone on her forehead. She used very little make-up and could afford this economy for she was a beautiful girl.

She said, “It’s simply that his second marriage hasn’t been a success. If I left him now he’d really and truly have nothing to live for. Really.”

“Nonsense,” Mark said uneasily.

“He’s never been able to do without me. Even when I was little. Nanny and I and my governess all following the drum. So many countries and journeys. And then after the war when he was given all those special jobs-Vienna and Rome and Paris. I never went to school, because he hated the idea of separation.”

“All wrong, of course. Only half a life.”

“No, no, no, that’s not true, honestly. It was a wonderfully rich life. I saw and heard and learnt all sorts of splendid things other girls miss.”