“I’d always assumed she found him a nuisance, but apparently not.”

“They certainly seem delighted with each other,” Jean agreed.

“I’ve never seen her so flirtatious,” said Howard. “It made me feel quite uncomfortable. I don’t know why.”

“Perhaps you feel they are too old for that sort of thing.”

“Maybe. It seems a bit undignified. But romance shouldn’t be the preserve of young people, should it?”

“No, certainly not.” Jean felt the injustice of any prejudice that might one day apply to her and was determined to smite it. “I’m sure inside they feel the same emotions as an eighteen-year-old. The yearning for approval and love doesn’t change. The aging body is just cladding.”

“You put it so nicely,” said Howard. “And imagine if dignity was all we had to look forward to in old age!”

They drove in silence for a while through the sunken lanes with exposed tree roots and overarching branches—great cathedrals of beech and oak with their vaulted roofs of sunlit green.

“If you leave me that brooch I’ll mend it for you,” Howard said finally. “It needs a new stone.”

“You don’t need to go to any trouble,” said Jean. “It’s fine.”

“It’s no trouble,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m a jeweler. Anyway, I’d like to. It’s one thing I can do for you.”

“In that case, thank you.”

“Aunt Edie’s gifts are kindly meant but often more trouble than they’re worth. I dread to think what Gretchen will have to say about that fur. And the shoes.”

“The silk dress will probably be all right. She’ll be able to turn it into something fabulous.”

“She will be too busy making strudels.”

“Likewise.” They had insisted she take one of the crates of apples, enough to last all winter. “Although the English equivalent in my case. Turnovers, perhaps.”

There were still hours of daylight left and yet there was a melancholy sense of approaching dusk and the fading of a perfect day, which brought tears to Jean’s eyes. Tomorrow she would be back at her desk, writing Pam’s Piece and Household Hints and The Garden Week by Week. There was no possibility that circumstances would align themselves in just this way again to allow her another similar outing with Howard. It would survive only in memory; to be taken out and turned over now and then, like one of the treasures from her dressing-table drawer.

They had reached Shoreham now; even after so many hours the children were still playing in the stream. One of the girls—no more than eight or nine herself—was carrying a huge baby on her hip, staggering under the weight of him. They looked just like the sort of scruffy, neglected children Jean would have been forbidden to play with or even approach when she was young, and even now they exerted a powerful fascination. She took a deep breath, which emerged as a sigh, and Howard glanced at her.

“Are you all right, Jean?” he asked. “Have I said something to upset you?”