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    â€˜And do you have to rush back?’ he asked. ‘Or can you stay for a while?’
    He watched with surprised interest as the narrow, vivid little face was suffused with colour. He thought: There’s a man there somewhere and she’s in love with him.
    â€˜I have to go back for treatment,’ she said after a moment. ‘For my Pilates class and to see the physio.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I know how it is.’
    He stood up and began to remove the tea things whilst Daisy sat in silence, watching him. She was fighting back the most extraordinary desire to tell him all about Paul. Perhaps it was because he was so like Mim that she’d been so immediately at ease with him; whatever it was she must be careful not to go blurting out things like a foolish child.
    â€˜Pull yourself together,’ she told herself firmly – and, dropping a kiss on Floss’s golden head, she got up to help him.
    Daisy slept late the next morning and took her time over her breakfast. The kitchen had been stocked up with the basic necessities so that she was able to make coffee and toast: she rejected the cereals but found a grapefruit in a bowl amongst some apples and oranges.
    â€˜I’m afraid I’m rather slow and uncommunicative much before ten o’clock,’ Roly had admitted last evening after a gentle walk on the hill. ‘It was those early years in London that set the pattern. Mim and I shared lodgings whilst she was training and I was at art college. She often had late performances or we had friends in – you know the form – and neither of us are early birds. I get up to let the dogs out and then potter very slowly.’
    â€˜Sounds perfect,’ she’d assured him. ‘If I were to have a pre-breakfast stroll, would the dogs come with me?’
    â€˜Oh, I should think so. If you follow the route we’ve just taken they won’t let you get lost, and if Uncle Bernard gets bored he’ll simply come home by himself. Enjoy yourself. Kate will be here around mid-morning to meet Floss but you’d be back by then. Come and have some coffee with us.’
    As it happened she’d slept until nearly nine o’clock. Now, wandering back from washing-up in the kitchen, eating a slice of apple, she caught sight of a woman leaning on the five-bar gate. Daisy moved closer to the window and stared down curiously. She guessed that the woman was in her sixties; she had short, curling grey hair, and her chin rested on her arms that were folded along the top bar of the gate as she watched Bevis and Floss playing together in the yard.
    Kate, thought Daisy.
    She guessed that she’d left her car down by the ford and had walked up so as to come upon the dogs unannounced. Studying her, Daisy was struck by the look on the woman’s face: an odd and touching mixture of tenderness and loss. A little smile lifted the corners of her mouth but her whole expression was one of sadness.
    Daisy finished her apple, curbing a desire to go out and give her a hug.
    â€˜What are you like?’ she asked herself derisively. ‘Hugging people you’ve never met.’
    Even as she watched, Roly came out of the house. It was clear that Roly hadn’t heard Kate arrive and he gave an exclamation of pleasure that distracted the dogs from their game. They rushed to meet him and, all in a moment, there was great activity. Bevis jumped up at the gate with woofs of welcome and even Floss, losing a little of her reticence, went to claim her share in the greeting. They remained for a moment, Kate leaning on the gate with Roly beside her, discussing the dogs and completely relaxed. Then Roly made some comment that made Kate laugh and a look of great affection – and something more – passed between them.
    Quite suddenly, Daisy felt as if she were spying on something infinitely private. She turned away quickly,