n, and explained to him
what sort of cough Owen had. He understood instantly, and said that he
would send a mixture which worked miracles, but I could not get Owen
off my mind at once, and when Jack Ward came in very late to see me I
sat up talking to him until a most unrighteous hour, with the result
that I lay in bed the next morning until I was perfectly tired of my
scout coming to call me.

A letter from my mother was on my table in which she said that I was on
no account to allow Nina to interrupt my reading, but I had only just
finished breakfast, when Mrs. Faulkner and Nina came into my rooms.
Mrs. Faulkner fixed her eyes on the tea-pot and said nothing; Nina,
however, asked if everybody in Oxford breakfasted at eleven o'clock. I
had not expected them, and was consequently a little flurried; the
truth is that I was not properly dressed, which handicapped my
movements considerably. Decency compelled me to keep my legs under the
table, until I could slip into my bedder. I was not in a condition to
treat visitors who goaded at my laziness with any courage; tact was the
only thing possible. In my agitation I did not notice that Nina had
put on the clock quite twenty minutes, and when she asked me if I was
going to sit in front of the marmalade for the rest of the day, I had
to reply that I thought it was rather a good place to sit. I had
managed to hide myself behind the table-cloth when I stood up to wish
them good-morning, but I simply did not dare to move again.

Mrs. Faulkner fluttered round the room looking at photographs; the bare
knees of the Rugger XV. compelled her to say that she did not think
them at all nice. I put my legs farther under the table and felt like
blushing. She began to suspect that I was hiding something, and I am
afraid she was the sort of woman who did not understand, until she had
discovered them, that there are some things which had better remain
hidden. She tried little tricks to entice me from my seat, and even
came and examined the table-cloth, which was ordinary enough, though
she said it was a beautiful one. I did not see how a white table-cloth
could be beautiful, but I clutched it most fervently and her ruse
failed. She then asked me if a plate which had cost
elevenpence-farthing was Wedgwood, and asked me to take it off the wall
so that she might see the mark on the back. I told her I had bought it
at the Japanese shop and mentioned the sum it cost, but she declared