“Yes,” said Major Marchbanks, “it’s rather a grim proposition, isn’t it? But I shouldn’t keep you standing about in this beastly wind. We shall meet again, I hope, at the Christmas tree.”

“I hope so, too,” said Troy.

“Rather a rum setup at Halberds I expect you think, don’t you?”

“Unusual, at least.”

“Quite. Oh,” Major Marchbanks said as if answering an unspoken query, “I’m all for it, you know. All for it.”

He lifted his wet hat again, flourished his stick, and made off by the way he had come. Somewhere down in the prison a bell clanged.

Troy returned to Halberds. She and Hilary had tea very cosily before a cedar-wood fire in a little room which, he said, had been his five-times-great-grandmother’s boudoir. Her portrait hung above the fire: a mischievous-looking old lady with a discernible resemblance to Hilary himself. The room was hung in apple-green watered silk with rose-embroidered curtains. It contained an exquisite screen, a French ormolu desk, some elegant chairs and a certain lavishness of porcelain amoretti.

“I daresay,” Hilary said through a mouthful of hot buttered muffin, “you think it an effeminate setting for a bachelor. It awaits its chatelaine.”

“Really?”

“Really. She is called Cressida Tottenham and she, too, arrives tomorrow. We think of announcing our engagement.”

“What is she like?” Troy asked. She had found that Hilary relished the direct approach.

“Well — let me see. If one could taste her she would be salty with a faint rumour of citron.”

“You make her sound like a grilled sole.”

“All I can say to that is: she doesn’t look like one.”

“What does she look like?”

“Like somebody whom I hope you will very much want to paint.”

“Oh-ho,” said Troy. “Sits the wind in that quarter!”

“Yes, it does and it’s blowing steady and strong. Wait until you see her and then tell me if you’ll accept another Bill-Tasman commission and a much more delectable one. Did you notice an empty panel in the north wall of the dining-room?”