‘By Nottingham and Grantham.’

‘And then your sister would drop you somewhere and you’d walk or drive back here? Sounds very risky, to me.’

‘Does it? Well, then, Hilda could bring me back. She could sleep at Mansfield, and bring me back here in the evening, and fetch me again in the morning. It’s quite easy.’

‘And the people who see you?’

‘I’ll wear goggles and a veil.’

He pondered for some time.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You please yourself as usual.’

‘But wouldn’t it please you?’

‘Oh yes! It’d please me all right,’ he said a little grimly. ‘I might as well smite while the iron’s hot.’

‘Do you know what I thought?’ she said suddenly. ‘It suddenly came to me. You are the ‘‘Knight of the Burning Pestle’’!’

‘Ay! And you? Are you the Lady of the Red–Hot Mortar?’

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes! You’re Sir Pestle and I’m Lady Mortar.’

‘All right, then I’m knighted. John Thomas is Sir John, to your Lady Jane.’

‘Yes! John Thomas is knighted! I’m my–lady–maiden–hair, and you must have flowers too. Yes!’

She threaded two pink campions in the bush of red–gold hair above his penis.

‘There!’ she said. ‘Charming! Charming! Sir John!’

And she pushed a bit of forget–me–not in the dark hair of his breast.

‘And you won’t forget me there, will you?’ She kissed him on the breast, and made two bits of forget–me–not lodge one over each nipple, kissing him again.

‘Make a calendar of me!’ he said. He laughed, and the flowers shook from his breast.

‘Wait a bit!’ he said.

He rose, and opened the door of the hut. Flossie, lying in the porch, got up and looked at him.

‘Ay, it’s me!’ he said.

The rain had ceased. There was a wet, heavy, perfumed stillness. Evening was approaching.

He went out and down the little path in the opposite direction from the riding. Connie watched his thin, white figure, and it looked to her like a ghost, an apparition moving away from her.

When she could see it no more, her heart sank. She stood in the door of the hut, with a blanket round her, looking into the drenched, motionless silence.

But he was coming back, trotting strangely, and carrying flowers. She was a little afraid of him, as if he were not quite human. And when he came near, his eyes looked into hers, but she could not understand the meaning.

He had brought columbines and campions, and new–mown hay, and oak–tufts and honeysuckle in small bud. He fastened fluffy young oak–sprays round her breasts, sticking in tufts of bluebells and campion: and in her navel he poised a pink campion flower, and in her maiden–hair were forget–me–nots and woodruff.