The refreshment tent was crowded, and Emma, ignoring the furtive signals of Mr. Spooner who seemed momentarily detached from his wife, went through the barrier to the Agricultural. Section which offered more spacious accommodation.

  She went to the end of the counter where tea was being dispensed, and was just about to pay for the cup that was handed to her when a voice at her elbow said: 'You must allow me, my dear,' and Mr. Spooner pushed some coins across the counter.

  Emma turned round to protest, her cheeks hot, but he waved her objections aside and stood ogling her with a rather ridiculous air of complacency. Horrid little man, she thought angrily, he must have followed her deliberately, and to make matters worse, he said roguishly:

  'Very smart of you to avoid the Dog Section. I took your tip and followed you here.'

  'If you imagine I was inviting pursuit, Mr. Spooner, you couldn't be more mistaken,' said Emma, outraged. 'If you want to know, I was avoiding you just as much as the other overcrowded tent.'

  'Now, that's not very nice,' he said reproachfully, even as he spoke, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected to see his watchful wife bearing down on them. 'I only wanted to say what a shame your dog let you down in the end. His temperament really is dicey, isn't it?'

  'He's not used to Miss Mills's handling,' said Emma coolly. 'Congratulations on your bitch winning. Was that all?'

  'Well, no. I wanted an opportunity to clear up that little misunderstanding when you were working for us.'

  'That was more than a year ago, so why bring it up again now?' said Emma coldly, and he looked sly and rather unpleasantly eager at the same time.

  `I've.. I’ve had no chance to explain, you see. And I should so much like to resume our little friendship now that

  you — er — work for somebody else,' he said, and put out a tentative hand to touch her.

  'There's nothing to explain,' Emma said crisply. 'You could, of course, have admitted to your wife at the time that it was not I who engineered that little scene she interrupted,' she went on, rather enjoying his discomfiture. 'But I realize now, of course, that this sort of thing had happened before, and Mrs. Spooner saves face by blaming the staff.'

  'She wouldn't have sacked you, you know, my dear. She had too much respect for your kennel qualifications,' he said, as if that excused the distasteful affair, and Emma knew a moment's unwilling compassion for the disagreeable Mrs. Spooner.

  'Well, my kennel qualifications don't stretch to swallowing unpleasant suggestions in order to keep my job, so I got in first and left,' she said, picking up her cup of tea and wishing he would go away.

  'That's not nice, my dear. I only wanted to get things dear,' he said, and put out a hand again to stroke her arm.

  She backed away too incautiously in that congested area, and someone jerked her elbow, sending the cup and saucer flying to the ground. She gave an involuntary exclamation of pain and annoyance as she felt the hot tea soaking through her thin frock, and a voice behind her said:

  'I do beg your pardon. Let me buy you another.'

  She turned quickly, glad of the diversion, in time to look down on the dark head and broad shoulders of a man stooping to retrieve her cup and saucer, then, as he straightened up and placed them on the counter, she said: 'Oh ' a little blankly.

  'Well,' said the dark stranger, running a rather critical eye over the damage to her dress. 'You seem to have a knack for messing up your clothes.'

  `And you seem to have a knack for causing unfortunate accidents,' she retorted, and his eyebrows shot up in the irritating expression of indulgence she remembered.

  'I think I should point out that the fault was yours in both instances, but don't let's quarrel over minor details,' he replied. 'And I have offered to buy you another.'

  `No, thanks,' she said, annoyed to find herself caught off balance when she had been dealing so neatly with the persistent Mr. Spooner.

  `Here, my dear, let me treat you. But first you must allow me to mop up that pretty dress. Some people are extraordinarily clumsy ' Spooner, whose presence she had temporarily forgotten, spoke in a loud proprietorial voice and whipped out his handkerchief, but before he could make a lunge at her dress, the tall stranger had produced his own and thrust it into her hand.

  'I'm sure you would prefer to do your own mopping up, and if your friend is alluding to me I would suggest that there are clumsier methods of annoyance than the spilling of a cup of tea,' he said, and Emma, seeing Spooner wince under a sudden and very direct look, felt she could have warned the brash little man, herself, not to tangle with someone right out of his class.

  'What do you mean, sir?' he blustered now. 'I pre-

  sume you must be a friend, but the young lady is with me.'

  'An acquaintance, shall we say? And I rather got the impression she was averse to your company.'

  By that time Emma had finished dabbing at her dress, the stranger was waiting with another cup of tea and his faintly amused expression dared her to refuse a second time.

  'Thank you,' she said meekly, and buried her nose in the cup to avoid his eyes. When she looked up again, Spooner had melted into the crowd, and her unknown acquaintance had propped his back against the counter and was observing her reflectively.

  `So you got the job, Miss Emma Penelope Clay ...' he remarked idly. 'I trust you're suitably grateful to me.'

  'Yes, of course,' she answered. 'It was kind of you to trouble, and it's a great pleasure to be back in Plovers Green.'

  `Ah, yes, of course, the nostalgic scene of your childhood. And what about the old home — the house where you were born, waiting for recognition in the best romantic tradition?'

  'I haven't had much time for exploring,' she answered a little shortly. 'Kennel work is much the same anywhere, but a new routine takes adjusting to, and the under kennel-girl is young and not very bright.'

  'The unprepossessing Ireen, pronounced, alas, as it's doubtless spelt.'

  'You know her?' But of course he must have seen

  Ireen if he was a visitor at Armina Court, and she was

  just going to ask for his name when he said suddenly:

  'Who was that unpleasant little bounder? He seemed

  to have rather erroneous notions about his own image.'

  'Spooner? He was once my employer, or rather his

  wife was. They run the Wentworth Kennels and have

  rather a bit of trouble keeping their staff.'

  `So I should imagine. Did they sack you?'

  `Certainly not! I handed in my notice in the proper way and went to work for a Miss Hollis, an elderly spinster with no frills but a fund of knowledge. I found her restful.'

  'I see. And do you find your present employer restful? She, too, is a spinster, but there the resemblance presumably ends.'

  Emma gave way to a schoolgirl giggle at the thought of such a comparison and he smiled in sympathy.

  `Yes, I can understand your amusement. The glamorous Miss Mills must cause quite a few heartburnings among your less well-favoured exhibitors. How has she done today?'

  'We won the Open Class and should have got Best of Breed, only—'

  `Only what?'

  `Oh, nothing really. The dog just wasn't in form, I suppose.'

  `No,' he said. 'Are you wondering what I'm doing here?'

  `Well, yes, I was. You didn't seem particularly interested in showing dogs.'

  `You're perfectly right, but you doggy enthusiasts have a regrettably limited viewpoint. This is primarily an Agricultural Show.'

  `Yes, of course.' She noticed for the first time that he was wearing breeches and leather leggings, and decided she had been quite out in her guesses. He was probably a well-to-do farmer or the owner of hacks or hunters having a day out at his local annual event. There had been no reason to assume, just because he had stopped for a drink in Plovers Green, that he had not been merely passing through. She was conscious at the same time of a somewhat inexplicable sense of

  regret that this being so, they were unlikely to meet again.

  'You are disappointed, Miss Clay?' he said, and for an embarrassing moment she thought he had guessed her thoughts.

  'Disappointed?'

  'That I don't share your reverence for the dedicated aims of the Fancy.'

  'Oh! No, of course not — why should you? I suppose I thought since you seemed interested in Miss Mills's kennels that you knew something about dog breeding,' she answered, feeling a little foolish.

  'My interest wasn't limited to the kennels as such, you know,' he said. 'Still, why do we confine ourselves to unrewarding topics of conversation? Tell me about yourself. Do kennelmaids have any sort of a life outside their duties? What do girls like you expect to get out of it when getting up at six-thirty in the morning to muck out kennels, and going to bed when the last job's done begins to pall?'

  Emma gave a little shrug of impatience. What right had this stranger to unsettle her with questions and statements thrown out with such casual unconcern? The shows were fun, never mind if you won or lost, and a nameless bond of fellowship linked them all in a little world where pride of achievement through sheer hard work could bring its own rewards.

  She found herself trying to explain to this sceptical stranger, but, although he listened attentively, he seemed unconvinced by her arguments.

  'Don't think I disagree in principle; the object of shows is to improve the breed standard, I understand, and as such very admirable,' he said, 'but the means can defeat the end when inbreeding merely produces the requisite show points, and at its worst, unsoundness.'

  `That, of course, is the popular uninformed quibble,' Emma replied a shade condescendingly. 'Do you know anything about dogs?'

  `A little.'

  `The layman's knowledge which is so superior to the experience of breeders who've been at it for years, I suppose,' she said somewhat rudely, and his grin was all the more infuriating for its tolerance. Then, becoming aware that the tent was beginning to empty and she must have spent longer than was permissible over her tea, she asked him rather anxiously for the time. 'Golly, I must fly!' she exclaimed. 'Miss Mills won't like to be kept waiting. Thank you for the tea.'

  He accompanied her into the open and they stood for a moment, jostled by the thinning crowd, listening to the loudspeakers, final announcements.

  `Well, I've enjoyed our chance encounters, Emma Penelope — you reveal a lot of yourself when you forget your prickles,' he said

  `Then it must be like meeting someone in a train,' she told him firmly. 'You talk a lot of nonsense because you're dealing with a stranger you'll never meet again.'

  `Ah, but that's where you can get led astray by false conclusions. You and I, I regret to tell you, Miss Clay, will undoubtedly meet again. Goodbye for now.' He sketched a vague salute and walked away, and she looked after him uncertain whether to be further incensed or secretly rather pleased. At least, she thought, making her way back to the Dog Section, she would find out his name from Marian on the way home, and would be properly briefed should they indeed meet again.

  The intention, however, went out of her head, for Marian, although her session in the bar with an attentive Mr. Dawson had done much to restore her

  customary aplomb, seemed determined to keep her kennelmaid at a distance.

  'I meant what I said about Flight,' she snapped to Emma's tentative condolence for the day's disappointment. 'It was rather a dirty trick, Emma, to go all out to steal his affection. Did you think I would hand him over to you altogether if he took a dislike to me?'

  'Of course not, but I had to win his confidence before I could make anything of him in the ring, and you did give me to understand I had a — a share in him.'

  'Yes, well ... to tell you the truth, I didn't realize then he was a certain Champion, but Dawson says there's nothing to stop him if he's handled right. He could get me a good price now from America if I felt like selling.'

  'But you wouldn't, surely? Not Flight!'

  'That will depend on you. You'll have to do all the handling in future because Dawson says I'm rotten at it, but that doesn't mean I'm prepared to lose my dog's devotion to you, so please treat him like any of the others, and forget favouritism.'

  Emma was silent, wrestling rather bitterly with her innermost thoughts. She was young enough to feel a child's resentment at the unfairness of offering a gift with one hand, and snatching it away with the other, but she supposed she had only herself to blame for such a naïve faith in unlikely promises, so she asked instead:

  'How did you like Dawson on closer acquaintance? He's quite a useful man to know when you're starting in dogs.'

  Marian laughed and gave Emma a quick little look of knowledgeable amusement.

  'Very much, but you don't, do you?'

  'I don't dislike him. He can be charming when he chooses.'

  `So I imagine. I rather gathered he had a little trouble with you in the days when you worked for him. He was most amusing about some of the silly young girls he used to employ who mistook his purely avuncular interest for something else.'

  `Very likely. Mr. Dawson can be an amusing man when it suits him,' Emma snapped back, and Marian gave her knee a little pat.

  `Don't be cross, darling. You were young and inexperienced and we can all make mistakes imagining romance where none exists,' she said, and Emma restrained herself from forgetting her place with difficulty.

  Marian let the subject drop with more tact than she usually displayed.

  She must, thought Emma during the next couple of days, have had second thoughts generally about her behaviour, for she tried very hard to win back favour, admitting her faults with the little-girl charm she could employ so successfully when she chose, seeking advice quite humbly on the mysteries of ring-craft and stressing her appreciation for Emma's superior knowledge and skill. Flight, it was true, was banished to the kennels, but there was no more talk of subversion on Emma's part and, indeed, Marian seemed inclined to be afraid she had gone too far as a result of her ill-tempered pinpricking.

  `You wouldn't ever leave me just because I'm sometimes thoughtless, would you, Emma?' she pleaded. 'I get all worked up when things go wrong and take it out on the nearest person.'

  'Of course not. Everyone spits out now and again. It's much more likely you'll up and give me notice one of these days,' Emma answered, trying to make light of it, and Marian looked at her with that brown-velvet softness which could be so disarming.

  'Oh, no, I shan't, and if I did you mustn't ever take me seriously,' she said. 'Dawson says I'm lucky to have you, and there are plenty of other kennels who would be glad to snap you up. People forgot you when you buried yourself with old Hollis, so it's lucky I got in first when you decided to make a change.'

  'In point of fact, I gate crashed,' Emma laughed, reflecting that Dawson must have indulged in some highly-coloured embroidery for reasons best known to himself. 'And that reminds me, who was—'

  'Promise – promise!' Marian interrupted with her usual disregard for a change of subject which might deflect from her own.

  'Promise what?' asked Emma, diverted.

  'That you won't leave even if I sack you.'

  'Oh, well, that's hardly a promise one can make and never break. Circumstances alter, and who can say what they may feel in six months or a year?'

  'Well, a year for sure – six months even. You can promise that.'

  'Why?'

  'Because Flight must be made up. He's worth more than my other Champions put together, Dawson says, and when he finds me a brood-bitch to suit his bloodlines, I'll have the foundation stock for a top-class kennel.'

  'Well now, that's common sense,' said Emma, wondering at the same time what Dawson was up to other than securing commission on a good deal, and whether Marian herself would have the incentive to build up her own strain before tiring of the work and patience that must go into it.

  'Then promise that at least you'll see Flight through to his title. After all, he is half yours,' Marian said with such an audacious disregard for her recent retraction that Emma could only think she had forgotten.

  'Yes, I can promise you that. I have as much interest as you in getting those tickets,' she said, and Marian dapped her hands like a child.

  'Good! Now I can go away with a quiet mind, and you'll be able to work on that temperament and slip in a few illicit cuddles that I won't be here to see.'

  'Going away?'

  'Only for the week-end. I get browned off sticking around here. The people are stuffy and there aren't many unattached males, anyway,' said Marian, and Emma reflected that it was probably true.

  `Where are you going?' she asked, because it seemed only polite to show interest, but Marian suddenly looked coy and flirtatious and shook her bright head, and Emma got the notion she had fixed up some date with Dawson. Most likely they were going to make a round of well-known kennels to select a bitch, and whatever the arrangements for accommodation, Dawson would be much too fly to suggest anything faintly improper.

  'What shall I bring back for you?' Marian was saying gaily. 'I owe you a present as a kind of olive branch.'

  'Nothing, but thank you all the same,' Emma replied.

  'All right, you needn't be stuffy,' Marian snapped offendedly, and sounded decidedly stuffy herself. 'Oh, I forgot to tell you Grainger will be coming on Friday to inoculate the puppies. It's tiresome he couldn't fit in with my plans, but vets are as choosy as doctors these days, so you'll have to cope on your own.'

  Emma repressed a smile, recognizing the mood. Miss Mills of Armina Court was making it clear to the kennelmaid that one's vet, no less than one's paid staff, had no right to put their own convenience before hers.

  'I'll make a full report when you come back,' she murmured demurely, and was rewarded with a satisfied little pat of approval.

  'That's right,' Marian said as if, thought Emma, the routine immunizing of puppies was an operation requiring expert supervision, then added roguishly: 'And don't get up to mischief with our rather attractive Mr. Grainger in my absence.'

 

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