He did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and as I cannot bear anybody tapping at me, I thought Nina might help to calm him. So I walked down the terrace and introduced her to him suddenly, for he had a reputation for bolting from strange ladies, and I thought it best to leave nothing to chance. But as soon as he saw Nina the cloud disappeared from his face, and his aggressively moral mood changed. In fact I distinctly heard him say "delightful," though I am sure that he did not intend his remark to be audible. He inspected Nina as if she was for sale or on show, but he so clearly approved of her that she did not seem to mind him. "Won't you sit down?" she said. "Only on one condition," he answered. "What is it?" "That you tell me the name of your dressmaker," but before Nina could speak he had settled himself beside her, and continued: "You are not only successful in being cool but also in looking cool; now I have ten nieces, delightful girls, but they cannot take exercise without rivalling the colour of a peony. They look what I can only describe to you as full-blown." "But I have not been taking exercise," Nina said. "That, I suppose, is true," he replied, and forgot promptly what he had been talking about. After a minute's silence his head began to sink forward, and I was afraid he was beginning to think hard or go to sleep, so I told Nina that it was time for us to go back to the hotel; for much as I liked the Warden I had no wish to watch over him while he slept on the Terrace of the Casino, and I thought that he might expect to find me there when he woke up. Nina held out her hand to wish him good-bye, but he said that he was coming with us, and while we were walking to the hotel I left him to her, for I was debating whether I had better ask him to meet my father and mother or not. I knew that he had offended a great many people who had come to see him in Oxford about their sons, and he was reported to have said that the greatest difficulty in dealing with undergraduates was the parent difficulty. "If I was dictator of Oxford it should be a city of refuge for young men, and no father or mother should be allowed to enter it during twenty-four weeks of the year," was one of the things he was supposed to have said, and if my father happened to get him upon that subject I foresaw trouble. But the question settled itself, for my mother was sitting on the verandah in front of the hotel and came down the garden to meet us. I had heard the Warden chuckle three times as we had walked up the road, and though I could not imagine how Nina was amusing him, I thanked goodness that he seemed to be thinking about ordinary things. "I have the pleasure of knowing your brother," he said as soon as he was introduced; "he and I disagree upon every subject I have ever had the privilege of discussing with him."