“Different standards! Look here, I’ve had enough of this play-acting. How dare you stand there and talk to me of standards, you little cheat!”

Her cheeks flamed.

“Donald!”

“What else are you? You get into my household, and a cottage cheap, on false pretences, and then, when you hear that the one person who can show you up has arrived, you come up here and say you can’t teach Iris, or come to the house again because you have different standards to mine. Then, to crown everything, you add please will I not think you’re bitter or angry. Now, listen to this, it’s I who am bitter and angry. I wouldn’t have you teach Iris if you were the last woman on earth. You can get out, and stay out, and you and your family are to be out of that cottage at the end of the month.” He went into the house and slammed the door.

Janet held her mouth with both hands. It was not that there was any sound coming from it, for all sound had been struck out of her. Ben had come up to the yard to get things ready for milking. He had watched Donald and Janet from a shed. His eyes might be old, but he had read all that movement could tell him, and he had countryman’s eyes, used to reading much from the way things fell. He hobbled across the yard and, with surprisingly gentle hands, moved Janet so that he could open the gate. Then he patted her arm.

“Away home, now, you do look wholly pale.”

“Ben!” It was so faint a sound it might have been a murmur in the trees.

Ben had not handled sick animals for nothing.

“You go home now,” he repeated, and then, in the encouraging voice he used to a sick mare, “Up, old lady, we’ll have you fine and right by mornin’.”

She shook her head.

“He hates me. He hates me, Ben.”

He watched the tears trickle down her cheeks, then he shook his head.

“I been knockin’ round this many a year, and I’ve learnt a parcel of thin’s, and one of the first is there ain’t not a blade of grass between hatin’ and lovin’, not between a lass an’ a man there isn’t.”

Janet did not hear this. Ashamed of her tears, and with desperation forcing her to move, she was running to Maggie.

Section 20

Barbara was sitting by the colonel when Dick came across the lawn. She gave him a cool little nod.

“Hullo!”

He had planned the meeting in the tea-garden just to avoid a public greeting. He wanted her in his arms. His voice showed it.

“Barbara!”

The colonel looked up, his eyes twinkling.

“Don’t mind me. You take her down the garden.” Barbara’s voice was icy.

“No, thank you, I’m quite comfortable here.”