e neck in the Morrisian manner, of no kind of
fashionableness. She spoke in a low voice, smiled to herself with a
benevolence that was not without a touch of the sardonic, and often
looked at the floor or at the ceiling. Mr. Ingram, very slim and neat,
was quite as small as his wife, and seemed smaller. He talked much and
rather amusingly, in a somewhat mincing tone, as it were apologetically,
truly anxious to please. He had an extremely fair complexion, and his
youthfulness was quite startling. His golden hair and perfect teeth
might have belonged to a boy. George leapt immediately into familiarity
with these two. But nobody could have less resembled his preconceived
image of 'Parisian' than Mr. Ingram. And he could not understand a bit
whence or how such a pair had produced their daughter Lois. Laurencine
was a far more comprehensible offspring for them.

The dining-room was even less spacious than the drawing-room, and as
unpretentious. The furniture everywhere was sparse, but there were one
or two rich knick-knacks, and an abundance of signed photographs. The
few pictures, too, were signed, and they drew attention. On the table
the napkins, save George's, were in rings, and each ring different from
the others. George's napkin had the air of a wealthy, stiff, shiny
relative of the rest. Evidently in that home the long art of making both
ends meet was daily practised. George grew light-hearted and happy,
despite the supreme preoccupation which only a telegram could allay. He
had keenly the sensation of being abroad. The multiplicity of doors, the
panelling of the doors, the narrow planking of the oaken floor, the
moulding of the cornices, the shape of the windows, the view of the
courtyard from the dining-room and of attics and chimney-cowls from the
drawing-room, the closed anthracite stoves in lieu of fires, the
crockery, the wine-bottle, the mustard, the grey salt, the
unconventional gestures and smiles and exclamations of the unkempt
maid--all these strange details enchanted him, and they all set off very
vividly the intense, nice, honest, reassuring Englishness of the host
and hostess.

It was not until after the others were seated for the meal that
Laurencine made her appearance. She was a magnificent and handsome
virgin, big-boned, physically a little awkward, candid. How exquisitely
and absurdly she flushed in shaking hands with George! With what a
delicious mock-furious setting of the teeth and tossing of th