the place struck me as being changed. The men seemed younger. . . ."

The burden of the conversation fell upon Lady Marayne. She looked
extraordinarily like a flower to Billy, a little diamond buckle on a
black velvet band glittered between the two masses of butter-
coloured hair that flowed back from her forehead, her head was
poised on the prettiest neck conceivable, and her shapely little
shoulders and her shapely little arms came decidedly but pleasantly
out of a softness and sparkle of white and silver and old rose. She
talked what sounded like innocent commonplaces a little spiced by
whim, though indeed each remark had an exploratory quality, and her
soft blue eyes rested ever and again upon Billy's white tie. It
seemed she did so by the merest inadvertency, but it made the young
man wish he had after all borrowed a black one from Benham. But the
manservant who had put his things out had put it out, and he hadn't
been quite sure. Also she noted all the little things he did with
fork and spoon and glass. She gave him an unusual sense of being
brightly, accurately and completely visible.

Chexington, it seemed to Billy, was done with a large and costly and
easy completeness. The table with its silver and flowers was much
more beautifully done than any table he had sat at before, and in
the dimness beyond the brightness there were two men to wait on the
four of them. The old grey butler was really wonderfully good. . . .

"You shoot, Mr. Prothero?"

"You hunt, Mr. Prothero?"

"You know Scotland well, Mr. Prothero?"