The park ran down to the Midhurst Road, and when Hillyard was shown into the drawing-room he walked across to the window and looked out over a valley of fields and hedges and low, dark ridges to the downs lying blue in the sunlight and the black forests on their slopes.
From an embrasure a girl rose with a book in her hand.
"Let me introduce myself, Mr.Hillyard.I am Joan Whitworth, and make my home here with my aunt.

They are all at Goodwood, of course, but they should be back at any moment." She rang the bell and ordered tea.

Somewhere Hillyard realised he had seen the girl before.

She was about eighteen years old, he guessed, very pretty, with a wealth of fair hair deepening into brown, dark blue eyes shaded with long dark lashes and a colour of health abloom in her cheeks.
"You have been in Egypt, uncle tells me." "In the Sudan," Hillyard corrected.

"I have been shooting for eight months." "Shooting!" Joan Whitworth's eyes were turned on him in frank disappointment.