By that time too a small notice had appeared in the Court Circular of The Times: ‘Lord and Lady Hartlip have taken up residence in Kenya and their permanent address in future will be …’

There had been an inquest and a verdict of accidental death and an expression of sympathy from the Coroner for the unfortunate sportsman whose skill was well known and who had certainly not deserved this stroke of bad luck. (The Coroner, in other words, simply grovelled to Lord Hartlip, but no one seemed to think this odd, or even deserving of comment.) The Hartlips continued their lives as before; only the trouble was that in their small world the news very quickly circulated that the accident had not in fact been bad luck, and that Gilbert had been shooting dangerously. He’s losing his skill, they said, and can’t accept it; it’s making him a dangerous shot; he’s not the great sportsman he used to be; one finds oneself reluctant, they said, to go on asking him to shoot.

Aline, quick to sense the direction of opinion, gave a series of dinner parties. She tempted her guests with musicians, with Russian Grand Dukes, famous beauties, Society painters, great newspaper proprietors, Sir Reuben Hergesheimer and high-class bridge. Invitations to shoot failed to follow. Aline was confident that all they had to do was to sit it out, but Gilbert was too proud for that. He had spent several months in East Africa, big-game shooting, and had taken a particular liking to Nairobi and the White Highlands. He sold his estates in England and bought a farm near Nanyuki. Aline, at first horrified, soon settled down. She took up rifle shooting herself, and carried on a discreet affair with the ne’er-do-well scion of a noble family who had been sent to Kenya to redeem himself. At least, she felt, one was out of the way of that ghastly War.

Violet and Osbert went down with Nanny to see Tom Harker’s dog.

She had been taken to the kennels next to the gamekeeper’s cottage. Dan Glass let her out to see the children and she came creeping towards them with her sheepdog’s subservient crawl, wagging her tail and smiling so that she made herself sneeze.

Violet crouched down to stroke her.

‘Isn’t she sweet?’

The dog, who did not know Violet and was not used to being petted, snarled and gave a quick snap very close to Violet’s face. Violet fell over backwards, but quickly picked herself up. She had gone very red but did not cry because she did not want Dan to think she was a baby.

‘If you want them to be kind,’ said Dan, ‘you have to start being kind to them when they’re very young.’

Violet nodded, and consented to go with him to see whether the hens had laid any eggs; but the episode stayed in her mind as a thoroughly unsatisfactory one, of which she felt obscurely ashamed.

Dan was to move quite soon to lodgings in Oxford. His father had been to see Sir Randolph soon after the shooting accident, and had told him that after all he would like on behalf of Dan to accept Sir Randolph’s offer. Sir Randolph had been pleased, and because he knew how hard Glass had taken that episode (as if it reflected in some way upon his management of the shoot) he guessed that it had something to do with his change of heart, but feeling that it was no concern of his did not ask further.