Was he in the right set? Was he indeed in the right college?
Trinity, by his account, seemed a huge featureless place--and might
he not conceivably be LOST in it? In those big crowds one had to
insist upon oneself. Poff never insisted upon himself--except quite
at the wrong moment. And there was this Billy Prothero. BILLY!
Like a goat or something. People called William don't get their
Christian name insisted upon unless they are vulnerable somewhere.
Any form of William stamps a weakness, Willie, Willy, Will, Billy,
Bill; it's a fearful handle for one's friends. At any rate Poff had
escaped that. But this Prothero!

"But who IS this Billy Prothero?" she asked one evening in the
walled garden.

"He was at Minchinghampton."

"But who IS he? Who is his father? Where does he come from?"

Benham sought in his mind for a space. "I don't know," he said at
last. Billy had always been rather reticent about his people. She
demanded descriptions. She demanded an account of Billy's
furniture, Billy's clothes, Billy's form of exercise. It dawned
upon Benham that for some inexplicable reason she was hostile to
Billy. It was like the unmasking of an ambuscade. He had talked a
lot about Prothero's ideas and the discussions of social reform and
social service that went on in his rooms, for Billy read at unknown
times, and was open at all hours to any argumentative caller. To
Lady Marayne all ideas were obnoxious, a form of fogging; all ideas,
she held, were queer ideas. "And does he call himself a Socialist?"