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astir. The Hunt Fête, which drew the entire country, now was the sole festivity of the lonely year, for Montefort the annual outing—which, more and more each summer, required nerve. One does not go into the world and come home the same: isolation has altered its nature when one returns. Rare were sallies from Montefort—Fred grudged the time; Lilia, shy and huffy, felt unequal these days even to braving church (Maud had become the solitary, seldom-failing occupier of the family pew). As to the Fête, however, there remained an imperative: this challenging social gathering, which one paid money to enter, was a thing apart. The Danbys ‘appeared’ at it, as unfailingly as they could be relied upon to be nowhere else. There they were, still themselves, still alive; forgotten since this time last year they had gone on existing, inside those gates knotted shut with a chain. Fred, wearing a cap, made one of the crowd watching the jumping; while his wife, fashionably got up, stood apart, at bay, high heels ground into the lawn. The lost lady suffered under wandering stares.
    This time, the Montefort party had gained by including Jane and Antonia. Jane, legging it round the place swinging a tray and in a small muslin apron, was among the busiest helpers at the tea tent; and Antonia had opened in good form—hatless, jewelled, flashing her black glasses, spotting friends, capping sentiments, barking greetings. Her age, able to be calculated to a day by the many present who still knew her, if anything added to her showing: each year made more of her, not less. The gorgeousness of her parrot-green satin shirt, stuffed into a skirt of inconspicuous flannel, somehow drew the eye from, by defying, her stumpy build: she was of high voltage, as is the case more often with short men than little women—and indeed little she was not: her top half suggested a greater stature, having breadth, poise, carriage, imposing style. Stains on her long fine fingers, actually nicotine, were with awe attributed to her profession—as an artist photographer she had made a name, young; she still had the name, and was understood still to be making money. So widely had she been heard of, and for so long, that she arrived at having been heard of even here: today she was playing her part of fame. Wherever she turned, she by turning flattered: the crowd pleased her because she was pleasing it.
    The Fête, dazzling concourse of marquees ringed round a lawn, had as backdrop the stucco face of the castle, a terrace along which urns blazed with geraniums, a cascade of steps upon which the new English chatelaine from time to time interestingly appeared. (It had been during one of these sorties of Lady Latterly’s that she had perceived Jane, had her led up, chatted, noted her name and even address in case of possible future need, and in short taken a fancy to the girl.) The kaleidoscopic shimmer over the Fête spun over and into the shadow of glossy beeches, the cool of which encaved ice cream stalls; while from the mound overspread by a nightlike cedar a handbell clanged or a megaphone bawled in vain. Pungent sweat and heatedly trodden grass, fumes of tea and porter, thrum of hoofs from the paddock, the strikings-up and dyings-down of the band all fused into an extreme for Antonia, whose own senses, boastful, stood up to it.—But then she tripped over a tent peg, jarred the lens in her brain: in the instant revulsion set in, as it now did always. Like a bullet-hit pane, the whole scene shivered, splintered outward in horror from that small black vacuum in its core. She could not wait to get out—where was Fred? Where was the Ford?
    It had come to be six o’clock; midges gauzed the air. Megaphones gave out the raffle results: Maud it was who had won the bottle of whisky and who soon came past bearing her prize. Antonia, having given the child a pound (which all things considered she thought enough) snatched the bottle and packed Maud off to find Fred. He