"I wish you would go and meet them at the lodge," said Susannah Chressham.
"'Tis near an hour before they are due," smiled Marius, looking at his watch. "How impatient you are!"
"To see her, yes." Miss Chressham unfurled her pink parasol. "I am quite agitated."
"Shall we return to the house?"
"No, it is very pleasant here; let us go to my rose garden, it will pass the time, and really some of the blooms are beautiful."
They took a path that led towards the lake across the cedar-shaded lawn; the sun was strong before its setting and cast a soft glow through the rosy silk of Miss Chressham's parasol on to her bare brown head and white dress; Marius Lyndwood was very exquisitely arrayed in dove-coloured satins; as he walked beside his cousin he played with the red tassels on his ivory-headed cane.
"Has Rose written to you of late?" asked Miss Chressham suddenly.
"I received a letter from him two days ago, as I was leaving Brereton's," answered Marius half shyly. "I spoke of it to my lady, but she did not encourage me to show it to her."
He switched at the thick daisies with his cane.
"Rose wrote from Calais—charmingly—he enclosed bills to a large amount, and said he had arranged a captaincy for me in the Blues—'twas all very sweetly worded."