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Woodgate until a late hour, or perhaps not at all when he took the train to London for some meeting or other with business colleagues or rivals.
    So Kate was left frustrated and bitter, pondering again on the annoying situation concerning Cassandra and Jon.
    The growing rift between the two girls had widened, though neither spoke of it. Kate was too proud to enquire where Cassie was going when she set off with her pad and paint-box, presumably for a session of sketching, or to suggest accompanying her. She had never done so in the past, and it would be too humiliating to show curiosity now. She didn’t think much of Cassie’s delicate watercolours anyway. All the same, there was a difference in Cass these days, not only in looks which had a kind of ethereal secretive quality about them that was tantalizing, but in behaviour.
    Before the occasion of the dance the timetable of her days had been fairly predictable; she ’d either spend the mornings wandering about the expansive Beechlands gardens making pencil sketches of flowers and wildlife, or take a certain ramble to the nearby copse, returning early for lunch, then, in the afternoon mooning – Kate’s expression – in the library with a book. Occasionally they went together with Emily on a shopping expedition to Lynchester. Now her routine had changed; in fact there was no definite routine at all. One moment Cass would be in the conservatory perhaps, or arranging flowers in the lounge, the next she’d have slipped off, and if wanted casually for some reason, was nowhere to be found.
    And her disappearances were so quietly and effectively contrived that Kate was disturbed, suspecting the reason.
    ‘I think she’s meeting someone,’ she said to her mother one day, when her cousin couldn’t be located. ‘Haven’t you noticed how – odd – she’s been lately? Always slinking off by herself, and sort of – well, self-satisfied.’
    Emily laughed the question off. ‘My dear girl, Cassandra’s always been the quiet sort. She likes her own company, especially when she’s got immersed in some idea for a new painting—’
    ‘ Pooh! I don’t believe it’s a painting at all.’
    Emily looked mildly surprised. ‘It’s not like you to be so bothered about Cassie,’ she remarked quietly. ‘Why is it Kate?’
    Recovering herself, Kate answered, ‘Oh, nothing really. Yes, I suppose you’re right. It was just – well, there are gypsies about. You wouldn’t want her getting entangled with any of those, would you?’
    But it wasn ’t gypsies she was thinking of, it was Jon.
    ‘ No, I wouldn’t, and I’m certainly not at all bothered about such a thing,’ Emily replied firmly. ‘I’m quite sure Cassandra has far more sense.’
    ‘ Forget it then,’ Kate remarked, trying to sound practical. ‘I’m probably imagining things.’
    ‘ I’m sure you are.’
    But however easy it was to close the subject with words, facts suggested otherwise when two days later Cassandra confided to Kate that Jon had invited her to Charnbrook for the afternoon and tea following, if her aunt, Mrs Barrington, agreed.
    The words came out in a soft flurry of excitement, there was a tinge of colour in her usually delicately pale cheeks.
    ‘I – I was painting at a place near Feyland,’ she said, ‘it’s lovely there. I often go, and Jon happened to turn up. He said it would be all right if you came too. His mother has some watercolour sketches that are very old her grandmother did them, and she thought—’
    ‘ Oh, you needn’t explain,’ Kate interrupted sharply, as a rush of jealous anger rose in her. ‘ You go. I’m not interested in art like you are, and tea-talk bores me anyway.’
    ‘ You don’t mind , do you? He’ll collect me – in his car, I think, and bring me back. Will Aunt Emily agree?’
    ‘ You’d better ask her,’ Kate said, ‘but I’m sure she’ll be delighted for you to have any – proper – social connection with the Wentworths. It’s