“Please, Mr. Maradick,” she said, turning round to him, “make him start something seriously. Take him into your office. He can add, I expect, or be useful in some way. He’s getting as old as Methuselah, and he’s never done a day’s work in his life.” Although she spoke lightly, he could see that she meant it very seriously. He wondered what it was that she wanted him to do, and also why people seemed to take it for granted that he had influence over Tony; it was as if Fate were driving him into a responsibility that he would much rather avoid. But the difficulty of it all was that he was so much in the dark. These people had not let him into things, and yet they all of them demanded that he should do something. He would have liked to have asked her to tell him frankly what it was that she wanted him to do, and, indeed, why she had appealed to him at all; but there was no opportunity then. At any rate he felt that some of her indifference was gone; she had let him see that there were difficulties somewhere, and that at least was partial confidence. Mrs. Maradick interrupted: “Miss Du Cane, I wonder if you would come and make a four at bridge. It’s too hot to go out, and Sir Richard would like a game. It would be most awfully good of you.” Alice moved over to the card-table. Sir Richard played continually but never improved. He sat down now with the air of one who condescended; he covered his mistakes with the assurance that it was his partner who was playing abominably, and he explained carefully and politely at the end of the game the things that she ought to have done. Mrs. Maradick and Mrs. Lawrence played with a seriousness and compressed irritation that was worthy of a greater cause. Tony had slipped out of the room, and Lady Gale crossed over to Maradick by the window. “How quickly,” she said, “we get to know each other in a place like this. We have only been here a week and I am going to be quite confidential already.” “Confidential?” said Maradick. “Yes, and I hope you won’t mind. You mustn’t mind, because it’s my way. It always has been. If one is going to know people properly then I resent all the wasted time that comes first. Besides, preliminaries aren’t necessary with people as old as you and I. We ought to understand by this time. Then we really can’t wait.” He looked into her face, and knew that here at least there would be absolute honesty and an explanation of some kind. “Forgive me, Lady Gale,” he said, “but I’m afraid I don’t understand. I’ve been in the dark and perhaps you’ll explain. Before I came down here I’d been living to myself almost entirely—a man of my age and occupations generally does—and now suddenly I’m caught into other people’s affairs, and it’s bewildering.”