“Poorest Rose,” she said, glancing at her stepdaughter, “you’re wearing such suitable gloves. Do cope with your scratchy namesakes for Mark. A box perhaps.”

“Please don’t bother,” Mark said. “I’ll take them as they are.”

“We can’t allow that,” Mrs. Cartarette murmured. “You doctors mustn’t scratch your lovely hands, you know.”

Rose took the basket from him. He watched her go into the house and turned abruptly at the sound of Mrs. Cartarette’s voice.

“Let’s have a little drink, shall we?” she said. “That’s Maurice’s pet brandy and meant to be too wonderful. Give me an infinitesimal drop and yourself a nice big one. I really prefer crème de menthe, but Maurice and Rose think it a common taste, so I have to restrain my carnal appetite.”

Mark gave her the brandy. “I won’t, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’m by way of being on duty.”

“Really? Who are you going to hover over, apart from the gardener’s child?”

“My grandfather,” Mark said.

“How awful of me not to realize,” she rejoined with the utmost composure. “How is Sir Harold?”

“Not so well this evening, I’m afraid. In fact I must get back. If I go by the river path, perhaps I’ll meet the Colonel.”

“Almost sure to I should think,” she agreed indifferently, “unless he’s poaching for that fable fish on Mr. Phinn’s preserves, which, of course, he’s much too county to think of doing, whatever the old boy may say to the contrary.”

Mark said formally, “I’ll go that way, then, and hope to see him.”

She waved her rose at him in dismissal and held out her left hand in a gesture that he found distressingly second-rate. He took it with his own left and shook it crisply.

“Will you give your father a message from me?” she said. “I know how worried he must be about your grandfather. Do tell him I wish so much one could help.”