Marbury's charm for Peter rested, too, upon his ability to talk in a perfectly natural and unaffected way of intimate and simple things. Marbury at once declared his pleasure in Peter's mother. His own people had not come to Oxford for the races, and he devoted himself almost entirely to Mrs. Paragon. "It's pleasant just to carry her mackintosh," he said to Peter one evening after they had come from the hotel. "I'm glad you like her." "Like her?" protested Marbury. "Don't be inadequate. She is simply wonderful." Peter asked himself how Marbury had discovered this. "What have you been talking about all the evening?" he inquired. "I haven't the least idea. Mostly nonsense." "Then how do you know she is wonderful?" "Peter," said Marbury, "sometimes you annoy me. It's true that I haven't the least idea what your mother thinks about the English aristocracy or George Meredith. I simply know that your mother is wonderful." Peter leant eagerly forward: "I understand how you feel." "Good," jerked Marbury. "I'm glad you are not quite insensible." He looked reflectively at Peter, and continued: "I am almost hopeful about you now that I've met your mother. I cannot help feeling there must be some sanity in you somewhere. But where did you get all your nonsense?" "My father was shot down in the street," said Peter briefly. "I'm sorry," said Marbury after a pause. "I did not know." The summer races were run to an end, and only three weeks of term remained. Peter, physically unemployed, accumulated stores of energy. He became insufferably violent in conversation, and Marbury, after telling him to put his head in ice, said he would have no more to do with him till he no longer addressed his friends as if they were a public meeting.