e family residence--stands in its own
grounds of at least six acres. Now Philip could hardly suspect that so
well dressed a man of such distinguished exterior would be guilty of
such a gross breach of the recognised code of Brackenhurstian manners as
was implied in the act of vaulting over a hedgerow. So he gazed in blank
wonder at the suddenness of the apparition, more than half inclined to
satisfy his curiosity by inquiring of the stranger how the dickens he
had got there.

A moment's reflection, however, sufficed to save the ingenuous young man
from the pitfall of so serious a social solecism. It would be fatal to
accost him. For, mark you, no matter how gentlemanly and well-tailored a
stranger may look, you can never be sure nowadays (in these topsy-turvy
times of subversive radicalism) whether he is or is not really a
gentleman. That makes acquaintanceship a dangerous luxury. If you begin
by talking to a man, be it ever so casually, he may desire to thrust his
company upon you, willy-nilly, in future; and when you have ladies of
your family living in a place, you really CANNOT be too particular what
companions you pick up there, were it even in the most informal and
momentary fashion. Besides, the fellow might turn out to be one of your
social superiors, and not care to know you; in which case, of course,
you would only be letting yourself in for a needless snubbing. In fact,
in this modern England of ours, this fatherland of snobdom, one passes
one's life in a see-saw of doubt, between the Scylla and Charybdis of
those two antithetical social dangers. You are always afraid you may get
to know somebody you yourself do not want to know, or may try to know
somebody who does not want to know you.

Guided by these truly British principles of ancestral wisdom,
Philip Christy would probably never have seen anything more of the
distinguished-looking stranger had it not been for a passing accident
of muscular action, over which his control was distinctly precarious.
He happened in brushing past to catch the stranger's eye. It was a clear
blue eye, very deep and truthful. It somehow succeeded in riveting for a
second Philip's attention. And it was plain the stranger was less afraid
of speaking than Philip himself was. For he advanced with a pleasant
smile on his open countenance, and waved one gloveless hand in a sort of
impalpable or half-checked salute, which impressed his new acquaintance
as a vaguely polite Continental