"But a life with a large income MUST be sordid unless it makes some
sort of attempt to be fine. . . ."



9


By transitions that were as natural as they were complicated and
untraceable Prothero found his visit to Chexington developing into a
tangle of discussions that all ultimately resolved themselves into
an antagonism of the democratic and the aristocratic idea. And his
part was, he found, to be the exponent of the democratic idea. The
next day he came down early, his talk with Benham still running
through his head, and after a turn or so in the garden he was
attracted to the front door by a sound of voices, and found Lady
Marayne had been up still earlier and was dismounting from a large
effective black horse. This extorted an unwilling admiration from
him. She greeted him very pleasantly and made a kind of
introduction of her steed. There had been trouble at a gate, he was
a young horse and fidgeted at gates; the dispute was still bright in
her. Benham she declared was still in bed. "Wait till I have a
mount for him." She reappeared fitfully in the breakfast-room, and
then he was left to Benham until just before lunch. They read and
afterwards, as the summer day grew hot, they swam in the nude pond.
She joined them in the water, splashing about in a costume of some
elaboration and being very careful not to wet her hair. Then she
came and sat with them on the seat under the big cedar and talked
with them in a wrap that was pretty rather than prudish and entirely
unmotherly. And she began a fresh attack upon him by asking him if