The house, a place of grey stone with grey weathered and lichen-coloured slates, raised its great oblong chimneys into a pellucid air.

The sunlight flashed upon its rows of tall windows--they were all flat to the house, except the one great bay on the ground floor in the library--and birds called from all the trees.

The time slipped away.

Dick Hazlewood found himself talking of his work, a practice into which he seldom fell, and was surprised that she could talk of it with him.

He realised with a start how it was that she knew.