“Because whoever’s farm it is I want to see him.”

“You won’t see him.  There isn’t anybody there.”

“Oh.”

He lingered.

“Do you know who he is?” she said.

“No.  I don’t know anything.  I don’t even know where I am.  But I hope it’s Bourton-on-the-Hill.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t.  It’s Stow-on-the-Wold.”

He laughed and shifted his knapsack to his left shoulder, and held up his chin.  His eyes slewed round, raking the horizon.

“It’s all right,” she said.  “You can get to Bourton-on-the-Hill.  I’ll show you.”  She pointed.  “You see where that clump of trees is—­like a battleship, sailing over a green hill.  That’s about where it is.”

“Thanks.  I’ve been trying to get there all afternoon.”

“Where have you come from?”

“Stanway.  The other side of that ridge.”

“You should have kept along the top.  You’ve come miles out of your way.”

“I like going out of my way.  I did it for fun.  For the adventure.”

You could see he was innocent and happy, like a child.  She turned and went with him up the field.

She wouldn’t go to Bourton-on-the-Hill.  She would go back to the hotel and see whether there was a wire for her from Gwinnie....  He liked going out of his way.

“I suppose,” he said, “there’s something the other side of that gate.”

“I hate to tell you.  There’s a road there.  It’s your way.  The end of the adventure.”

He laughed again, showing small white teeth this time.  The gate fell to with a thud and a click.

“What do I do now?”

“You go north.  Straight ahead.  Turn down the fifth or sixth lane on your right—­you’ll see the sign-post.  Then the first lane on your left.  That’ll bring you out at the top of the hill.”

“Thanks.  Thanks most awfully.”  He raised his hat, backing from her, holding her in his eyes till he turned.

He would be out of sight now at the pace he was going; his young, slender, skimming stride.

She stood on the top of the rise and looked round.  He was halting down there at the bend by the grey cone of the lime kiln under the ash-tree.  He had turned and had his face towards her.  Above his head the battleship sailed on its green field.

He began to come back, slowly, as if he were looking for something dropped on his path; then suddenly he stopped, turned again and was gone.

There was no wire from Gwinnie.  She had waited a week now.  She wondered how long it would be before Gwinnie’s mother’s lumbago gave in and let her go.

* * * * *

She knew it by heart now, the long, narrow coffee-room of the hotel.  The draped chimney piece and little oblong gilt-framed mirror at one end; at the other the bowed window looking west on to the ash-tree and the fields; the two straight windows between, looking south on to the street.