“Perhaps there is nothing,” Carina said, thinking as she spoke that Sir Percy at any rate had other interests.

“I don’t like that Sir Percy and that’s a fact,” Mrs. Barnstaple said. “And, as I said to her Ladyship this morning, it’s not good for his Lordship to be cooped up in that smoky atmosphere for so many hours at a time.”

“Perhaps he likes it,” Carina suggested.

“Well, if he does, he oughtn’t to,” Mrs. Barnstaple replied. “He has changed, has his Lordship. You would not believe what a nice young man he was. ‘Hello, Barnie,’ he used to say when he came back from school. That’s what he and his brother used to call me. ‘Hello, Barnie. Have you got lots of strawberry jam for me?’ We used to have a joke about my strawberry jam being better than the cook’s. It was just a bit of his fun. And now there’s hardly a smile for me or anyone else.”

“Why is that?” Carina asked, not because she was interested, but because she did not like to seem unfriendly and unresponsive.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a woman at the bottom of it,” Mrs. Barnstaple said.

She smoothed her silk apron with her hands and made her keys jangle.

“Well, I must be getting along. Is the little Prince all right? I gather you would have told me if he had a temperature.”

“He is quite all right, thank you,” Carina smiled.

“I tell you what,” Mrs. Barnstaple said, “I’ll send one of the housemaids to sit in the nursery for a little while so that you can have a walk outside before it gets dark. You look a bit pale as though you need some air. It’s a lovely evening, the wind’s gone and the sunset will be beautiful over the Park. You go out and get some roses into your cheeks.”

“Please don’t worry – ” Carina began, but Mrs. Barnstaple had already gone, bustling away to rouse the housemaids into doing their duty.

She made up her mind to remain upstairs, but when a housemaid arrived, a jolly rosy-cheeked girl, Carina thought it would seem churlish to refuse Mrs. Barnstaple’s kind gesture.

She put on her coat and, thinking that she would see nobody, did not bother to put on her hat.

“I will not be long,” she said to the housemaid.

“Oh, don’t hurry, miss,” the girl answered. “It’s nice to have a chance to sit down and give me feet a rest.”

Carina went down the back staircase and, avoiding the main hall, found a way into the garden through a side door.