The train drew up at the platform.  Ariadne got out.  The footman explained to her that his Lordship was so very sorry not to be able to come to the station, but he was attending a cattle show.

“Of course,” said Ariadne, and she felt it.

She got into the brougham—­it was so characteristic of St. John not to use a motor in the country—­which had that delightful, almost forgotten, smell of broughams, and drove through an avenue of oaks up to the fine old Georgian house, dignified and mellow and lived in—­a house proud of its cellar and its stables—­of its linen and its silver—­a house where men were men and women were women—­where the master hunted and sat on the Bench, and the mistress embroidered and looked after the household—­each having his separate functions and the one joint one of propagating the race.

In the hall, St. John’s housekeeper, in a black taffetas apron, welcomed her.

“His Lordship would be most distressed not to have been there when her ladyship arrived, but the cattle show——­”

“Of course,” said Ariadne, and hinted at a quite special awareness of the importance of Cattle Shows.

Her bedroom was immense—­there were lavender bags in all the drawers, and flowers on the dressing table, the fire was lit and there was boiling water in the shiny pale brass can.  Her maid, the housekeeper explained, was sleeping in the dressing room.  On the table by her bed was a glass box of biscuits, “The Wrong Box,” “Omar Khayyam” and Lucas Malet’s last novel.

Ariadne was smiling with happiness.  Talk about the joys of the unexpected, can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be?  There was a tap at the door.

“Come in.”

“It’s I.” (St. John never said “It’s me.”)

She threw open the door.

“Do come in,” she said, and then, with a little stab of extra pleasure, she wondered if he would be shocked by her flimsy pink dressing gown and her bare feet.

“St. John,” she put out both her hands.  “I am happy to be here.”

He took them and held them quite tight, then he kissed them.

“Little Ariadne,” he said.

It was, she supposed, a way of getting over the dressing gown.

“You look younger than ever,” he said.

“It’s my hair being down,” she murmured.

He asked her if she had had a good journey, and whether the housekeeper had seen that she had everything she wanted.

She asked him if the cattle show had been a success.

He said he really must dress for dinner, and so must she.

“Ariadne,” he put his hand on her arm, “it’s good to have you here.”

There was an emotion welling up in his voice that surprised her.  He turned his back and left the room rather hurriedly.  She realised that he had almost kissed her.  Would he have said, “I’m sorry, but you looked such a baby,” or, “Forgive me, it was seeing you again after so long,” or, “Ariadne, can you forgive me?  I lost my head.”