"I'm sure she didn't. But it is the supreme arrogance of people like that to live in a complete bubble and not feel they have to follow any of the normal countryside rules or conventions, isn't it?"

"Oh no, Iris isn't like that at all. She's frightfully hot on that sort of thing, closing gates and what have you."

"Oh, she's frightfully hot, is she?" His dark eyes blazed into mine.

I gazed back then nodded slowly. "Oh, I see. Yes, I get it. This is some sort of chippy class-war aggression, is it? Your beach party's been spoiled so you blame the toffs?"

"I blame the people who assume that because their land extends to the coast, they have a perfect right to treat the beach as theirs, too."

"Well, why don't you go and tell them, instead of taking it out on me?"

"Oh, I fully intend to. I was on my way."

"Good. Well, if you'll get out of mine, I'll be on my way too."

I didn't wait, and instead, stalked around and past him. Blasted man. How rude. How dare he? I made myself not glance back. I mean, obviously he was cross, and I remembered now seeing the students in the dunes, no doubt ready with their buckets and — no, not spades — all manner of collection paraphernalia, nets and jars, perhaps. But to accost me when I clearly had no idea. And I'd apologized immediately. I knew I had. No manners. None whatsoever.

I opened the little gate that led to the cottage and strode up the path, annoyed that my pleasant evening had been ruined and that my admittedly always rather pivotal mood had been tipped the wrong way, just when it was inching so accommodatingly in the right direction. I shut the front door behind me with more vigor than I might usually. Celia was in the little strip of kitchen at the far end. The French doors were open to the garden, music was blaring, and she was cooking a stir fry, already halfway through a bottle of white wine. I flung my basket on the sofa and headed for one of the glasses she'd put ready on the breakfast bar.

"Rude man," I told her, needing to share. She turned, surprised, spatula in hand.

"Who?"

“That conservationist chappie."

"Oh really? Why?"

I told her. She turned back to stir the chicken and vegetables in the pan, thoughtful.

"Yes, well, I can see his point, actually. Especially if there were signs."

"We didn't see the signs, Cele."

"No, because, as he said, the Bellingdons aren't like normal people."

"No, not because of that, because we simply came another way. That doesn't make them abnormal!”

"No, but that is the difference, isn't it? It's why you came another way."