A sudden puff of wind blew in through the open window, disarranging the grouping of a vaseful of flowers, and Ann crossed the room to rectify the damage. Lady Susan's eyes followed her meditatively. She liked the girl's supple ease of movement, the clean-cut lines of her small, pointed face. There was something very distinctive about her, she reflected, and she had to the full that odd charm of elusive, latent femininity which is so essentially the attribute of the modern girl with her boyish lines and angles. "I shall miss you dreadfully, Ann!" she exclaimed impulsively. "I wish you belonged to me." She was hardly conscious of the line of thought which had prompted the spontaneous speech. Ann turned round smilingly. "It's dear of you to say so," she replied. "I shall insist on Robin's letting me come over to White Windows as often as I like--and as you will have me!" Lady Susan laughed and kissed her. "You'd better not promise too much--or I shall want to abduct you altogether!" she declared. "I think Robin's a very lucky young man." Once the date of her departure for England was actually fixed, it seemed to Ann as though the days positively flew by. There were a hundred and one things requiring attention. Sleeping-berths must be booked on board the train, last visits paid to various friends and acquaintances, and final arrangements made with regard to the shutting up of Mon Rêve. Last, but not least, there was the packing up of Ann's own personal belongings, which, in the course of the last six months, seemed to have strayed away into various odd corners of the villa, as is the way of things. But it was all accomplished at last, and close on midnight the little party of four travellers stood on the deserted platform at Montricheux, watching the great Orient Express thunder up alongside. Followed a hurried gathering together of hand-baggage, a scramble up the steep steps of the railway coach, a piercing whistle, and the train pulled out of the station and went rocking on its way through the starry darkness of the night. CHAPTER IX OLDSTONE COTTAGE The journey from Montricheux to London accomplished, Ann was speeding through the familiar English country-side once more and finding it doubly attractive after her six months' sojourn abroad. The train slowed down to manipulate a rather sharp curve in the line as it approached Silverquay station, and she peered eagerly out of the window to see the place which was henceforth to mean home to her. She caught a fleeting glimpse of white cliffs, crowned with the waving green of woods, of the dazzling blue of a bay far below, and of a straggling, picturesque village which climbed the side of a steep hill sloping upward from the shore. Over all lay the warm haze of early July sunshine. Then the train ran into the station and she had eyes only for Robin's tall, straight figure as he came striding along the platform to meet her.