The sky was cloudless, the sun was agreeably hot, and there was no wind. No sounds but those of Nature came to our ears. The peace was absolute. It was, in fact, an old-fashioned summer’s day. Jonathan Mansel and I were sitting at ease on the terrace, our eyes on the blowing meadows that neighbour my Wiltshire home. My wife was standing between us, with a basket upon her arm. Jenny seemed young as ever: but the war had aged Mansel, and I was rather less active than I had been before. He had done more than his duty and had justly received a bar to his DSO: but I had had a price on my head and was proud of that. To our content, he came more often to Maintenance than he had come before, “for the old days hang on here,” he said, “as nowhere else that I know.” “I love,” said Jenny, “to see you two sitting here. You were together the first time we ever met.” “You told us to go away.” “I was a little girl then.” “And we were – rather younger,” I said. Jenny caught my hand to her heart.
