Unknown by Unknown

our luck. We still can't; she's a treasure and wonderful with Tom, who isn't easy, but I can't help wishing he had more time for me.'
    Perhaps you don't try to share his interests, Anna thought but didn't say, confining herself to asking how Tom did at school.
    'He's top of his form, good at sports too, but he likes to win.'
    'Most of us do,' Anna laughed and, relieved when Alex joined in, she ventured to say that it could just be that at the age Tom was now he responded more easily to a woman. 'I couldn't help noticing how he opened up to my grandmother when you came to The Gables last week.'
    'So he did to you,' Alex was quick to say.
    Anna wasn't so sure, but she nodded and said, 'Maybe,' and shortly after that they went on to talk of other things, culminating in Alex asking her if she'd mind visiting Mapleton and Company's stand.
    'The fine art dealers?' She was interested at once.
    'And auctioneers. Yes, that's right,' he smiled back at her, well pleased. 'I do quite a bit of business with them, both in London and here. They suggested I should call on them; they're keeping open house at their stand.'
    Anna did a quick mental resume about what she was wearing. Would a short linen skirt, a multicoloured shirt and hair loose about her face pass muster at the Mapleton stand, which might easily, she thought, be entertaining moneyed clients all in correct country clothes? She had noticed their stand when they'd first arrived; it was built like a small bungalow. 'Perhaps,' she said uncertainly, 'I ought to tidy up a bit first.'
    'You're fine as you are,' he said, looking at her with the cool eye of a man used to appraising beautiful things.
    Reassured, she reached for her bag. 'In that case, ready when you are.' Instinctively she realised that he set great store by appearances. He, himself, in a light flannel suit and Turnbull and Asser shirt, looked prosperous and well-turned out, and if he hadn't considered that she complemented his image he would never, she knew, have asked her to accompany him to the toffee-nosed Mapleton's stand.
    He's a perfectionist; he'd be hard to live up to but, even so, I like him; I like him a lot, she was thinking as they left the marquee and came out into the sunshine again.
    It was five-thirty and more and more people were pouring in through the turnstiles. After the fiasco of yesterday the weather had decided to behave itself. There was just enough breeze to flutter the bunting and put snapping life into flags and awnings, and to give coolness to the cattle in their makeshift shelters and pens.
    The atmosphere wasn't unlike a very 'upmarket market'. Groups of people met other groups they hadn't seen for a year. There were hoardings everywhere advertising cattle-feed and dips and special treatments for ticks. There was a smell of hay, of trodden grass, of oil from the columns and lines of farm machinery being demonstrated—in striking contrast to the magnificent shire-horses pulling an old-fashioned plough.
    Somewhere over by the children's funfair the band was playing the Oompa-pa tune from Oliver as, side by side with Alex, Anna walked onto the veranda of Mapleton and Company's stand.
    The three rooms into which it had been divided were peopled with chattering businessmen, some with their wives but most without, and a hired waiter was serving drinks. Alex was hailed—in fact, descended upon—by the senior partner, a smiling, bald-headed man in his sixties who ran the London, Mayfair office. He knew Alex well and was charmed, he said, to meet a friend of his. He plied them with refreshments, although Alex refused champagne.
    'Anna and I want to get home in one piece tonight,' he joked. Anna had a glass and felt better for it with every passing minute, and perhaps it was partly the champagne that made her accept, with no hesitation at all, Alex's invitation to have dinner with him one evening. He broached this on the way home, showing pleasure when she said yes.
    'We could try that new