‘It does not matter to us, Veronica,’ called down Mrs Lee-Mittison. ‘Mr Ammering’s plans for the day are his own, of course. I think you had better come up here, if you don’t mind, and help me put out the lunch. Then we will call back the others.’

Veronica pulled three pieces of bark from an olive tree and threw them in Victor’s face, then she turned her back on him and came scrambling up the hill. Mrs Lee-Mittison produced from her bag and spread out a printed paper tablecloth; her smile of competency usual to these occasions was a little dimmed by a still apprehensive consciousness of Victor’s presence below. With Veronica’s help she arranged the eatables. Veronica piled up the oranges in the middle of the cloth and ringed them round with Mrs Lee-Mittison’s little biscuits and the chocolates wrapped in scarlet and gold. ‘There: “The young housewife”!’ she cried, sitting back on her heels complacently. Mrs Lee-Mittison thought of the cottage below and had once more the queer little pang.

Sydney and James Milton returned by the loop of the road, which they had followed, they said, for a short distance in order to look into the farther valley. She conveyed by the manner of her walk and by an air of serene inattentiveness that it was nothing to her that he should choose to accompany her; it must be his mistake; she had nothing to offer. Looking and feeling like her friend Mrs Kerr, she sat down and turned her face to the view. Mr Milton was not so hot now, but he had been bouncing half a dozen conversational balls assiduously, and it was in evident relaxation that he lay down on his back on the grass like a dog and smiled up at the sky.

‘Here, we can’t all lie down, you know; it’s dinner!’ screamed Veronica. ‘Who do you think’s going to drop the hard-boiled eggs into your mouth? Gerrup!’ At the indescribable sound she made he sat up astonished. He had never been spoken to like this before and it deeply gratified him. By the time the others had assembled he was smiling and passing the food about and chaffing Veronica, perhaps a shade laboriously.

‘I say, I’d no idea you were a parson.’

‘Don’t I look like a parson?’

‘Oh no. I’m perfectly staggered. You may be a bishop or anything. Was I terribly disrespectful? Well, it’s not fair, anyway; you ought to wear that kind of collar.’

‘The dog-collar? Dear me, you think I ought to advertise?’ He was elated to find himself so much at ease, so disarmingly secular. ‘You spotted me, didn’t you?’ He turned to Mr Lee-Mittison, hoping to be contradicted.

‘My dear fellow, that is neither here nor there. I have always said that there is no reason why a parson shouldn’t be a sportsman.’