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backing of one’s family. But when both unite to regard a woman as …’ She stopped abruptly, and the flush which he had noticed at the approach of the Crankshaw family rose again to her neck. ‘I am speaking too freely, Mr Gregson. It is most improper of me. I must rely on you not to reveal my indiscretion.’
    The appeal in her eyes had an effect on David as disturbing as it was unexpected. Her hand was still resting lightly on his arm. He had a sudden overwhelming desire to take it in his own, to press it to his lips, to promise its owner anything in the world that her heart could wish.
    This is absurd, he told himself. He had heard often enough of young men who were swept off their feet by the first glimpse of a beautiful girl. But Margaret Lorimer wasnot beautiful, and he had survived the first glimpse of her without the smallest increase in the tempo of his heartbeat. Nothing of significance had occurred in the past few minutes. As a man who had already pulled himself a little way up in the world he had been drawn into an immediate sympathy for someone whose ambitions might be just as strong as his own, but who found wealth more difficult to escape from than poverty. But their conversation should, if anything, have diminished his interest. His companion’s thoughts were clearly concentrated on a subject which left no room to spare for young men. It was ridiculous to expect that she had formed any opinion about him at all. It was still more ridiculous to feel sorry for a sheltered young woman who would probably never in her life know a moment’s anxiety about anything of real importance. It was overwhelmingly ridiculous - he put it bluntly to himself - for a young accountant, even one earning a salary of more than a hundred pounds a year, to fall in love with the daughter of his employer. It was all so ridiculous that it could not possibly have occurred.
    What happened next was unpremeditated. At no point did he tell himself that the simplest way to destroy his own wishes before they became important to him lay in discourtesy, but only some feeling of this kind could have prompted his next remark. They had by now climbed the steps from the lower terraces to the garden which lay on the same level as the house. The appearance of the mansion on this side was not so grandiose as the approach from the carriage drive, where the new arrival was greeted by eight Italianate pillars supporting a row of marble figures in ancient Roman dress. But even from the garden the grandeur of the property was apparent. The pinkish local stone with which both the house and the orangery were built had been stuccoed over in grey. The long windows which overlooked the lawns gave the property a peaceful look, and the wisteria and evergreen magnolias which rose tothe height of the roof witnessed to many years of calm and prosperous living.
    â€˜A fine house,’ said David. ‘The reward, I suppose, for a century of slaving.’
    As soon as he had spoken he was appalled by his own words. He stood still, expecting the daughter of the house, the slavers’ descendant, at the very least to stalk away affronted. Instead she seemed too startled to move.
    â€˜You are very direct, Mr Gregson.’
    He dared to look at her, and found that she was staring steadily into his eyes. There was no reason, after all, why she should be ashamed.
    â€˜We Scots have an unfortunate habit, I fear, of calling things by their names.’ Now he wanted to beg her forgiveness, to explain what he had meant and not meant. No woman in his life before had ever reduced him to such a state of confusion.
    He was saved from argument when her elder brother emerged with his family from a small marquee in which ices were being served. Margaret ran forward with a cry of pleasure to pick up her three-year-old nephew Matthew, and cuddle him for a moment before setting him down again on the ground in order that his new sailor suit might be