Courts of Idleness by Dornford Yates

her small white feet up. Very well, then.”
    Fay regarded him with a faint smile, something of scorn in it, then:
    “And he’s known me about twenty minutes,” she said slowly. Mention of time made her glance at her wrist-watch. Before he could reply, “A quarter to one,” she announced, sitting upright. “I must go up. I’ll introduce you to your sister, if you like,” she added. “I suppose she’ll believe you.”
    Fettering smiled.
    “When I say I’m her brother? I think so. If the worst came to the worst, I could remind her of a certain summer Sunday morning about eight years ago, when she cantered straight into the Rectory crowd, who were coming home from church across our meadows. When I say that she was riding Blue Boy bareback at the time… I shall never forget the scene. The Rector said it was an outrage, Phyllis said it was pure bad luck, and everyone else said it was just like her – except the second gardener, that is.”
    “What did he say?” said Fay, laughing.
    “Oh, he said that Mrs Rector’s expression would have soured a bucket of cream at fifty yards. Several people thought her face would never go back.”
    Fay got up, took two steps forward, uttered a cry of pain, and sat down suddenly on the stone seat.
    “What on earth–” began Fettering.
    “Sorry,” said Fay, whipping off a small buckskin slipper, “but there’s a nail, or something, hurting like anything. Funny, I never felt it before.” She slipped her fingers into the toe of the shoe. “I’ve got it,” she added. “I say, it is sharp! I don’t wonder—”
    “Let me feel,” said Fettering.
    In silence Fay handed him the slipper – Betty’s, as a matter of fact. Finding her own uncleaned, she had sent for Falcon and borrowed a pair of her cousin’s to wear till luncheon.
    For a moment he felt gropingly, probing the pointed toe with a finger curiously. The next instant he withdrew it with a sharp exclamation of pain. Fay, who had been waiting for this, broke into a peal of merriment.
    “Nail!” said Surrey, regarding his second digit in some dudgeon. “Nail? Barbed wire’s more like it! And don’t hurt yourself, Grey Eyes. Keep some laughter for the blood; it’s just coming.”
    “I can’t help it,” sobbed Fay. “Your face when you—”
    “I know – must have been a scream. But – By Jove!” he added suddenly, turning the shoe upside down. “Look at it. No wonder you couldn’t walk! I fancy a fakir’d think twice before he settled down to four miles an hour on that.”
    “O-oh,” said Fay weakly.
    Firmly embedded in the sole of the slipper was a brass-headed drawing-pin.
    “But why did I only just feel it?” said Fay, big-eyed.
    “Probably because you’ve only just collected it,” said her companion. “I expect some fool’s been drawing here and dropped it, and you stepped on it as you got out of the chair. Is the foot bleeding, Grey Eyes?”
    “I don’t expect so.”
    Fettering raised his eyebrows. Then:
    “No?” he said.
    With that, he stepped in front of her, stooped down, and put a hand for the white-stockinged foot. The next moment a warm heel was resting in his palm.
    Exactly how it had got there Fay was never quite sure.
    “It is bleeding a little,” said Fettering. “I was afraid it must be.”
    “Is it?” said Fay carelessly.
    By way of answer, the other drew a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it gently against her toes. When he took it away, there was a faint red stain on the cambric.
    “You see?” he said, holding it up.
    “How awful!” said Fay. “D’you think I shall swoon?”
    Surrey set down the small foot tenderly before replying.
    “I hope not,” he said, smiling. “It’s not half as easy to carry a dead weight.”
    “If you think I’m going to let you carry me up,” said Fay, “you’re wrong.”
    Surrey Fettering stood upright and looked at her.
    “Well, you can’t walk up barefoot,” he said. “The most zealous penitent would shy at