10


At last came the hour of tipping. An embarrassed and miserable
Prothero went slinking about the house distributing unexpected gold.

It was stupid, it was damnable; he had had to borrow the money from
his mother. . . .

Lady Marayne felt he had escaped her. The controversy that should
have split these two young men apart had given them a new interest
in each other. When afterwards she sounded her son, very
delicately, to see if indeed he was aware of the clumsiness, the
social ignorance and uneasiness, the complete unsuitability of his
friend, she could get no more from him than that exasperating
phrase, "He has ideas!"

What are ideas? England may yet be ruined by ideas.

He ought never to have gone to Trinity, that monster packet of
everything. He ought to have gone to some little GOOD college, good
all through. She ought to have asked some one who KNEW.



11


One glowing afternoon in October, as these two young men came over