It was hardly at all the Joan he knew.

Joan had courage, but to face Goodwood in the clothes she affected at Rackham Park was beyond it.

From her grey silk stockings and suede shoes to the little smart blue hat which sat so prettily on her hair, she was, as Millicent Splay would have admitted, really dressed.
"There is a real telegram for you," she said.

She held it out to him enclosed in an envelope which had been already opened.
"_Please come to see me--Graham_," he read, and the actual receipt of the message stirred within him such a whirl of emotion that, for a moment or two, Joan Whitworth spoke and he was not aware of it.
Suddenly, however, he understood that she was speaking words of importance.
"I hope I did right to open it," she said.

"Colonel Brockley rode over this morning to tell us that his son had been recalled to his battalion by a telegram.