She turned slowly towards the house, carrying the basket of trout on her arm. She had sent back a message of thanks to Calladine with an intimation that she would visit him on the following day, and already the prospect of this visit was hanging over her, damp and chill. Listlessly, when the afternoon arrived she put on her muslin frock and her big straw bonnet, listening meanwhile for the sound of wheels on the gravel; she saw her own reflection in her mirror, saw herself cool and outwardly serene, but the picture gave her little pleasure. This with Calladine was one of the few appointments she had ever made in her free life, and it irked her curiously. From the first moment of her waking in the morning she had felt tied. Like a hobbled colt she wanted to kick herself free. That her afternoon should be restricted, ordained in advance,--in the midst of her resentment she had laughed at her childishness, had been ashamed of her egoism. What would become of her were she suddenly to find herself bound for life? She had been content to look after her father’s innocent wants; she had not shown herself selfish towards him; she could absolve herself from that charge; but then, he had not encroached on her comings and goings; she had given freely from love what she might have refused from duty. This appointment with Calladine was a duty; now she was tied; she could not take her pony or her fishing-rod this afternoon if the whim seized her. No, she must wait obediently for the arrival of Calladine’s gig; she must climb into it and sit meekly beside the sallow groom while he drove her to Starvecrow. Arrived there, Calladine would be waiting for her, and his pleasure would be her irritation. The appointment which had been a restraint to her would have been only a delight to him. A sulky child, she stared out of the window for the approach of the gig. She heard it now; the scrunch of the wheels, the clop-clop of the horse’s trot, and now it came into sight, the familiar high, ramshackle affair, gaunt horse and all, clanking up the carriage-drive and stopping in its abrupt, dislocated way in front of the door. Clare went down. Martha Sparrow was in the hall; she crooned over Clare in her lilac-coloured gown. “A flower come to life, my pretty child....” Mr. Warrener came out of his study; he saw Clare standing in the shadowy hall with Martha fingering round at her flounces; he pushed his spectacles on to his forehead. “Why, Clare, where are you going?” “To Mr. Calladine, father, I told you.” “Ah, to be sure, to be sure; well, he has all the luck; you’re a pretty thing to see.” She kissed him, laughed, sprang up into the gig, it started off clumsily, swaying from side to side, and the Manor House was lost to sight behind the trees.