She halted a few feet short of him, and her hand retreated to fondle the drooping roses. She looked rather apologetic, and a little embarrassed. She was sure now that he stood there, within reach—as sure as though he had driven up in a car like George, for everyone to see. One must therefore behave as normally and sensibly one would behave in the circumstances, and not go clutching at him like a halfwit child. She was steadier now, quite suddenly. After all, she had known for days that he was here....

“Lucky Muffin,” she said, and went to place the glass of roses on the desk. “Such a clever kitten, to be able to see him!” She heard Mrs. Pilton coming up the stairs with the tea-tray, and spoke to her casually without looking round as the door opened. “I think the flowers will revive, don’t you?”

Mrs. Pilton’s eyes fell on the tooth-glass with disapproval.

“He’s got a blue china bowl somewhere,” she remarked. “He always kept his roses in that.”

“Oh, of course—it’s on the shelf in the bathroom!” Sabrina flew off to fetch it. “This is much better for them, it’s smaller at the top,” she said as she returned.

Mrs. Pilton was setting down the tea-tray on the smoking-table beside the chesterfield with an easy, habitual gesture. It was there that Hilary’s tea-tray had always been laid.

“You oughtn’t to go missing your tea the way you do when you come up here,” she said, and her voice was as impersonal as ever on the kindly words. “Everybody needs a bit of something warm in the middle of the afternoon, I always think.”

“Yes, I do get sort of empty,” admitted Sabrina, raising her face from the roses with a radiant smile.

Like a bride, darted through the housekeeper’s mind. Like a bride on her way from the altar. She’s seen him, by the look of her eyes. No need to wonder how she’d take it. She knows....

“There’s a bit of extra milk there for Muffin, and a dish,” the woman said unemotionally, and turned away towards the door.

“Mrs. Pilton.” Sabrina had leaned both hands on the desk above the bowl of red roses—a casual, un-self-conscious pose which showed her fragile arms and the sweet turn of her head on its long throat. “Is it possible that anyone has been in the room since the day it was closed?”

“I don’t see how. I had the key.”

“I know. But when I came in just now the curtains were open, and the dust-sheets were folded up—over there.” She pointed.

Mrs. Pilton had paused just inside the door, and their eyes met across the room, Sabrina’s brilliantly blue and somehow triumphant—bridal. The housekeeper’s usual hooded look, remote and unrevealing, slid away from that too dazzling gaze. She stooped and gathered up the dust sheets competently.