Roddy and Sally, drinking sherry when the others had gone, had little to say. Sally, who was two years younger than Guy, merely remarked that he was a young fool. Roddy said he hoped Alice hadn’t noticed, which made his sister look at him curiously. They then agreed that it was a shame about Phoebe and that Gillie was no end of a good sort, after which Sally went to feed the puppies and Roddy did some of the extra work that Mr. Hoare’s illness had forced on him.
Alice went into her mother’s room before dinner and fidgeted with the ornaments on the mantelpiece in a way that made her mother ask what it was.
‘Mother,’ said Alice, ‘did you see?’
Mrs. Barton, whose ideals of unstained womanhood were not so high as Roddy’s, knew at once what her daughter meant.
‘I did indeed,’ she said. ‘I w
