But now, as at other times when he was free of her, the beauty of Cheveron confronted him. He could hear his mother’s voice and he knew she did not plead alone. There were the tenants, the question of his entering the House of Commons, the position he held in the County, the part the Stanfords had always played in Court circles. How trivial they all appeared in themselves, yet they mounted one by one into a formidable opposition, a veritable mountain when one compared them with the tiny frailty of Violet herself – lovely, fascinating and alluring, and at times maddeningly elusive.

Robert was suddenly aware that he had stood a long time outside the Villa des Roses and that he felt cold. The breeze had been stronger than he thought. He began to walk down the garden. The path twisted, there were steps every few yards and he descended lower and lower until an iron gate, beautifully wrought, let him out on to a narrow road.

He did not turn down the road, but instead walked across it and entered by a gate on the other side into the public gardens, laid out but a few years previously by the industrious François Blanc when he built the new town of Monte Carlo.

They were not yet complete, but already they gave promise of great beauty. The path through them twisted and turned beneath olive and palm trees, beside hedges of choisya and banks of rosemary. There was the heavy fragrance of eucalyptus and the exotic sweetness of jasmine and myrtle. In the daytime, a passer-by would be entranced by the cascades of scarlet geraniums, the beds of purple violets and garlands of blue heliotrope. But in the stillness of the night and in the shadow of the trees even the flowers seemed asleep.

Sir Robert was not concerned with the beauty around him. He was still thinking of Cheveron. He was remembering the mornings when he had risen before breakfast to find the grass drenched with dew, a golden radiance in the sky and the air filled with the songs of birds. He was remembering long days of partridge shooting over the roots and stubbles of cornfields, a covey winging their way over the ploughed land, his spaniel coming back triumphantly with a fallen bird in its mouth. He was recalling the long ride home after a day’s hunting when the lights of Cheveron had blazed a welcome through the wintry darkness.

Cheveron, always Cheveron! When he should be thinking only of Violet, of her lips against his, of her arms entwined round his neck.

He had reached the end of a flight of steps and rounded a grey rock overhung with wisteria when he felt someone bump into him and a voice gave a startled cry. He put out his hands to save whoever it was from falling, and was aware that he held a woman in his arms.