"Where have you been, Miles?" she asked, impatiently. "Pen has been here, and wanted specially to see you, but she couldn't stay any longer, as it's such a long run back. She motored over from Malmesbury." "What did she want?" Miles asked. "She's always in a stew about something. One of her Pekinese got pip, or what?" Lady Mary took his arm and turned to walk along the terrace. "I think," she said, and stopped. "Where _were_ you, Miles?" "I strolled down the village to get some tobacco, and then I saw a chap who'd got his motor stuck, and helped him, and then ..." Here Miles looked down at his aunt, who looked up at him apprehensively. "I caught up with Miss Morton and the children, and walked back to Wren's End with them. There, Aunt Mary, that's a categorical history of my time since tea." Lady Mary pressed his arm. "Miles, dear, do you think it's quite wise to be seen about so much with little Miss Morton ... wise for her I mean?" "I hope I'm not the sort of chap it's bad to be seen about with...." "Of course not, dear Miles, but, you see, her position...." "What's the matter with her position?" "Of course I know it's most creditable of her and all that ... but ... when a girl has to go out as a sort of nursery governess, it is different, isn't it, dear? I mean...." "Yes, Aunt Mary, I'm awfully interested--different from what?" "From girls who lead the sheltered life, girls who don't work ... girls of our own class." "I don't know," Miles said thoughtfully, "that I should say Pen, for instance, lives exactly a _sheltered_ life, should you?" "Pen is married." "Yes, but before she was married ... eh, Aunt Mary? Be truthful, now." Miles held his aunt's arm tightly within his, and he stooped and looked into her face. "And does the fact that Pen is married explain or excuse her deplorable taste in men? Which does it do, Aunt Mary? Speak up, now." Lady Mary laughed. "I'm not here to defend Pen; I'm here to get your answer as to whether you think it's ... quite fair to make that little Miss Morton conspicuous by running after her and making her the talk of the entire county, for that's what you're doing." "What good old Pen has been telling you I'm doing, I suppose." "I had my own doubts about it without any help from Pen ... but she said Alec Pottinger had been talking...." "Pottinger's an ass." "He doesn't talk _much_, anyhow, Miles, and she felt if _he_ said anything...." "Look here, Aunt Mary, how's a chap to go courting seriously if he doesn't run after a girl?... he can't work it from a distance ... not unless he's one of those poet chaps, and puts letters in hollow trees and so on. And you don't seem to have provided any hollow trees about here." "Courting ... seriously!" Lady Mary repeated with real horror in her tones. "Oh, Miles, you can't mean that!" "Surely you'd not prefer I meant the other thing?" "But, Miles dear, think!" "I have thought, and I've thought it out." "You mean you want to _marry_ her?"