Her hesitation gave him his opportunity.

“You aren’t going to scold me, are you?  I couldn’t help it.”

His unlovely, Cockney voice had in it a stroking quality.  It stirred something in the depths of Joanna’s heart.  Once again she tried to speak and could not.

“It’s such a lovely night—­just the sort of night you feel lonely, unless you’ve got someone very nice with you.”

This was terribly true.

“And you did give me the glad eye, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to.”  She had found her voice at last.  “I—­I thought you were someone else; at least I—­”

“Are you expecting a friend?”

“Oh, no—­no one.  It was a mistake.”

“Then mayn’t I stay and talk to you—­just for a bit.  I’m here all alone, you know—­a fortnight’s holiday.  I don’t know anyone.”

By this time he had dragged all her features out of the darkness, and saw that she was not quite what he had first taken her for.  He had never thought she was a girl—­his taste was for maturity—­but he had not imagined her of the obviously well-to-do and respectable class to which she evidently belonged.  He saw now that her clothes were of a fashionable cut, that she had about her a generally expensive air, and at the same time he knew enough to tell that she was not what he called a lady.  He found her rather difficult to place.  Perhaps she was a wealthy milliner on a holiday ... but, her accent—­you could lean up against it ... well, anyhow she was a damn fine woman.

“What do you think of the band?” he asked, subtly altering the tone of the conversation which he saw now had been pitched too low.

“I think it a proper fine band.”

“So it is.  They’re going to play ‘The Merry Widow’ next—­ever seen it?”

“No, never.  I was never at a play but once, which they did at the Monastery at Rye in aid of Lady Buller’s Fund when we was fighting the Boers.  ‘Our Flat’ it was called, and all done by respectable people—­not an actor or an actress among ’em.”

What on earth had he picked up?

“Do you live at Rye?”

“I live two mile out of it—­Ansdore’s the name of my place—­Ansdore Manor, seeing as now I’ve got both Great and Little Ansdore, and the living’s in my gift.  I put in a new parson last year.”

This must be a remarkable woman, unless she was telling him the tale.

“I went over to Rye on Sunday,” he said.  “Quaint old place, isn’t it?  Funny to think it used to be on the seashore.  They say there once was a battle between the French and English fleets where it’s all dry marsh now.”

Joanna thrilled again—­that was like Martin, telling her things, old things about the Marsh.  The conversation was certainly being conducted on very decorous lines.  She began to lose the feeling of impropriety which had disturbed her at first.  They sat talking about the neighbourhood, the weather, and—­under Joanna’s guidance—­the prospects of the harvest, for another ten minutes, at the end of which the band went off for their “interval.”