Lucinda was angry . It is not pleasant to find yourself forgotten and neglected . It is still less pleasant to walk home alone along a country road , at one o'clock in the morning , wearing a pale green voile . Lucinda was not prepared for such a walk . She had nothing on her feet save thin-soled shoes , and her only wraps were a flimsy fascinator and a short coat . `` What a guy I shall look , stalking home alone in this rig , '' she thought crossly . There was no help for it , unless she confessed her plight to some of the stranger guests and begged a drive home . Lucinda 's pride scorned such a request and the admission of neglect it involved . No , she would walk , since that was all there was to it ; but she would not go by the main road to be stared at by all and sundry who might pass her . There was a short cut by way of a lane across the fields ; she knew every inch of it , although she had not traversed it for years . She gathered up the green voile as trimly as possible , slipped around the house in the kindly shadows , picked her way across the side lawn , and found a gate which opened into a birch-bordered lane where the frosted trees shone with silvery-golden radiance in the moonlight . Lucinda flitted down the lane , growing angrier at every step as the realization of how shamefully she seemed to have been treated came home to her . She believed that nobody had thought about her at all , which was tenfold worse than premeditated neglect . As she came to the gate at the lower end of the lane a man who was leaning over it started , with a quick intake of his breath , which , in any other man than Romney Penhallow , or for any other woman than Lucinda Penhallow , would have been an exclamation of surprise . Lucinda recognized him with a great deal of annoyance and a little relief . She would not have to walk home alone . But with Romney Penhallow ! Would he think she had contrived it so purposely ? Romney silently opened the gate for her , silently latched it behind her , and silently fell into step beside her . Down across a velvety sweep of field they went ; the air was frosty , calm and still ; over the world lay a haze of moonshine and mist that converted East Grafton 's prosaic hills and fields into a shimmering fairyland .
At first XXXXX felt angrier than ever .
Grafton Lucinda Penhallow Romney fairyland fascinator moonshine morning voile years