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The band stopped playing. A whole population was idle in the Park, and it seemed, in the fierce calm of the sunlight, that of all the strenuous weekday vitality of the district only a murmurous hush remained. But everywhere on the horizon, and nearer, furnaces cast their heavy smoke across the borders of the sky: the Doing was never suspended.

‘Mr. Mynors,’ said Agnes, still holding his hand, when they had been silent a moment, ‘when do those furnaces go out?’

‘They don’t go out,’ he answered, ‘unless there is a strike. It costs hundreds and hundreds of pounds to light them again.’

‘Does it?’ she said vaguely. ‘Father says it’s the smoke that stops my gilliflowers from growing.’

Mynors turned to Anna. ‘Your father seems the picture of health. I saw him out this morning at a quarter to seven, as brisk as a boy. What a constitution!’

‘Yes,’ Anna replied, ‘he is always up at six.’

‘But you aren’t, I suppose?’

‘Yes, I too.’

‘And me too,’ Agnes interjected.

‘And how does Bursley compare with Hanbridge?’ Mynors continued. Anna paused before replying.