The grin she gave him in return was quite at odds with her grace and poise. It was the slightly mischievous smile of a girl who knows she is doing something wrong, but is going to do it anyway, and who will take some delight in the wrongdoing. For a moment, she looked younger, as if the years she had taken on herself during the war had melted away, and it was suddenly very clear that she was still little more than a girl.

Kneeling down, she unbuckled her hateful high shoes, and stepped out of them with an audible sigh of relief. "I should hate it to be the new style," she said lightly, bending to pick up the shoes. "The spoiled lordlings here would only stub their fine-painted toes and wail to the high heavens over it."