aunt's life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him."

"What's that to do with it?"

"You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it."

"Why on earth?"

She flushed a little. "I'm old-fashioned. One ought to consider one's
hostess, and fall in with her life. After we leave it's another thing.
But while we take her hospitality I think it's our duty."

Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried to fall in with Aunt
Emily's life. Aunt Emily watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms
sometimes do, on Sunday.

Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though a strange one. The
pompous landau rolled up to the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs.
Failing said, "Why am I being hurried?" and after an interval descended
the steps in her ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a sort of
sitting-room, and refused even to wear a bonnet there. The village was
shocked, but at the same time a little proud; it would point out the
carriage to strangers and gossip about the pale smiling lady who sat in
it, always alone, always late, her hair always draped in an expensive
shawl.

This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not alone. Miss Pembroke,
en grande toilette, sat by her side. Rickie, looking plain and devout,
perched opposite. And Stephen actually came too, murmuring that it would
be the Benedicite, which he had never minded. There was also the Litany,
which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing's delight. She
enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew,
looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for
his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. "He's
gone to worship Nature," she whispered. Rickie did not look up. "Don't
you think he's charming?" He made no reply.

"Charming," whispered Agnes over his head.

During the sermon she analysed her guests. Miss
Pembroke--undistinguished, unimaginative, tolerable.
Rickie--intolerable. "And how pedantic!" she mused. "He smells of the
University library. If he was stupid in the right way he would be a
don." She looked round the tiny church; at the whitewashed pillars,
the humble pavement, the window full of magenta saints. There was
the vicar's wife. And Mrs. Wilbraham's bonnet. Ugh! The rest of the
congregation were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces--she saw them
Sunday after Sunday, but did not know their names--diversified with a
few reluctant plough-boys, and the vile