that they were short of gardeners.  He saw her, as often he had seen her, raise herself and stand, head to one side, a gloved hand on her slender hip, gazing as it were ironically from under drooped lids at buds which did not come out fast enough.  And the word ‘Caline,’ for he was something of a French scholar, shot through his mind:  ‘Kathleen—­Caline!’ If he found her there when he got in, he would steal up on the grass and—­ah! but with great care not to crease her dress or disturb her hair!  ’If only she weren’t quite so self-contained,’ he thought; ’It’s like a cat you can’t get near, not really near!’

The car, returning faster than it had come down that morning, had already passed the outskirt villas, and was breasting the hill to where, among fields and the old trees, Charmleigh lay apart from commoner life.  Turning into his drive, Mr. Bosengate thought with a certain surprise:  ’I wonder what she does think of!  I wonder!’ He put his gloves and hat down in the outer hall and went into the lavatory, to dip his face in cool water and wash it with sweet-smelling soap—­delicious revenge on the unclean atmosphere in which he had been stewing so many hours.  He came out again into the hall dazed by soap and the mellowed light, and a voice from half-way up the stairs said:  “Daddy!  Look!” His little daughter was standing up there with one hand on the banisters.  She scrambled on to them and came sliding down, her frock up to her eyes, and her holland knickers to her middle.  Mr. Bosengate said mildly: 

“Well, that’s elegant!”

“Tea’s in the summer-house.  Mummy’s waiting.  Come on!”

With her hand in his, Mr. Bosengate went on, through the drawing-room, long and cool, with sun-blinds down, through the billiard-room, high and cool, through the conservatory, green and sweet-smelling, out on to the terrace and the upper lawn.  He had never felt such sheer exhilarated joy in his home surroundings, so cool, glistening and green under the July sun; and he said: 

“Well, Kit, what have you all been doing?”

“I’ve fed my rabbits and Harry’s; and we’ve been in the attic; Harry got his leg through the skylight.”

Mr. Bosengate drew in his breath with a hiss.

“It’s all right, Daddy; we got it out again, it’s only grazed the skin.  And we’ve been making swabs—­I made seventeen, Mummy made thirty-three, and then she went to the hospital.  Did you put many men in prison?”

Mr. Bosengate cleared his throat.  The question seemed to him untimely.

“Only two.”

“What’s it like in prison, Daddy?”

Mr. Bosengate, who had no more knowledge than his little daughter, replied in an absent voice: 

“Not very nice.”

They were passing under a young oak tree, where the path wound round to the rosery and summer-house.  Something shot down and clawed Mr. Bosengate’s neck.  His little daughter began to hop and suffocate with laughter.