It was most unfortunate that she should have chanced to meet and make friends with the one young man in, she supposed, ten millions, who could be mad enough to fall in love with her and was of an undisciplined disposition into the bargain. Why, he might have been a quite meek young man--one of those who worship in secret, reverence from afar, one controlled by a lifted finger or a flickered eyelash. But nothing controlled Christopher. He was an elemental force, and he swept her with him--she had certainly been swept somewhere unusual that brief moment she became so strangely quiescent in his arms. In his arms! Disgraceful. It rankled. It gnawed. The only thing to do, with such a memory scorching one, was to take to one’s heels. But imagine at her age having to take to any such things. The <i>indignity</i>.... Once more the footstool skidded across the shiny floor. The heads bent over the table turned towards her inquiringly. ‘Have you the fidgets, mother?’ asked Virginia gravely. ‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Catherine, getting up from her cushions. Mr. Lambton hastened across to help. An odd desire to slap Mr. Lambton seized her. She blushed that she should wish to. ‘But not before prayers?’ said Virginia, surprised. ‘Oh yes--I forgot prayers,’ said Catherine, slightly ashamed. Virginia, though, was more ashamed. It did seem to her unfortunate that her mother should have said that before Mr. Lambton. Bad to forget them, but worse to say so. She got up and rang the bell. ‘We’ll have them now, as you’re tired,’ she said. There usedn’t to be prayers in Catherine’s day, because George in his day hadn’t liked them, and she had kept things up exactly as he had, so that it was natural she should forget the new habits, besides finding it difficult to remember that the Manor was really a rectory now, a place in which family prayers the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning were inevitable. In came the servants, headed by the parlourmaid bearing a tray of lemonade and soda water, and it seemed to Catherine, watching for the faces of old friends, that they had been much thinned out. They trickled in where, in old days, if there had been prayers, they would have poured. Manifestly they were being rapidly exchanged for cottages. There was hardly one left to smile furtively at her before settling down with folded hands and composed vacant face to listen to Mr. Lambton.