deep end
of the pond."

The remark hung unanswered for a moment. The transition had been too
quick for Benham's state of mind.

"Do you swim, Mr. Prothero?" the lady asked, though a moment before she
had determined that she would never ask him a question again. But this
time it was a lucky question.

"Prothero mopped up the lot of us at Minchinghampton with his diving and
swimming," Benham explained, and the tension was relaxed.

Lady Marayne spoke of her own swimming, and became daring and amusing at
her difficulties with local feeling when first she swam in the pond.
The high road ran along the far side of the pond--"And it didn't wear a
hedge or anything," said Lady Marayne. "That was what they didn't quite
like. Swimming in an undraped pond...."

Prothero had been examined enough. Now he must be entertained. She told
stories about the village people in her brightest manner. The third
story she regretted as soon as she was fairly launched upon it; it
was how she had interviewed the village dressmaker, when Sir Godfrey
insisted upon her supporting local industries. It was very amusing but
technical. The devil had put it into her head. She had to go through
with it. She infused an extreme innocence into her eyes and fixed them
on Prothero, although she felt a certain deepening pinkness in her
cheeks was betraying her, and she did not look at Benham until her
unhappy, but otherwise quite amusing anecdote, was dead and gone and
safely buried under another....

But people ought not to go about having dressmakers for mothers....

And coming into other people's houses and influencing their sons....

8

That night when everything was over Billy sat at the writing-table of
his sumptuous bedroom--the bed was gilt wood, the curtains of the three
great windows were tremendous, and there was a cheval glass that showed
the full length of him and seemed to look over his head for more,--and
meditated upon this visit of his. It was more than he had been prepared
for. It was going to be a great strain. The sleek young manservant in
an alpaca jacket, who said "Sir" whenever you looked at him, and who had
seized upon and unpacked Billy's most private Gladstone bag without even
asking if he might do so, and put away and displayed Billy's things in
a way that struck Billy as faintly ironical, was unexpected. And it was
unexpected that the brown suit, with its pockets stuffed with Billy's
personal and confidential sundries