"You'll find that it is," she answered humorously. "It's twenty miles beyond Tenterden. If you don't start till ten when the moon sets, you won't be back till five, even if you've no accidents. . . . The horse is all right, though . . ." Tietjens said: "Mrs. Wannop, I ought to tell you that your daughter and I are being talked about. Uglily!" She turned her head to him; rather stiffly. But she was only coming out of an abstraction. "Eh?" she said, and then: "Oh! About the golf-links episode. . . . It must have looked suspicious. I daresay you made a fuss, too, with the police, to head them off her." She remained pondering for a moment, heavily, like an old pope: "Oh, you'll live it down," she said. "I ought to tell you," he persisted, "that it's more serious than you think. I fancy I ought not to be here." "Not here!" she exclaimed. "Why, where else in the world should you be? You don't get on with your wife; I know. She's a regular wrong 'un. Who else could look after you as well as Valentine and I?" In the acuteness of that pang, for, after all, Tietjens cared more for his wife's reputation than for any other factor in a complicated world, Tietjens asked rather sharply why Mrs. Wannop had called Sylvia a wrong 'un. She said in rather a protesting, sleepy way: "My dear boy, nothing! I've guessed that there are differences between you; give me credit for some perception. Then, as you're perfectly obviously a right 'un, she must be a wrong 'un. That's all, I assure you." In his relief Tietjens' obstinacy revived. He liked this house; he liked this atmosphere; he liked the frugality, the choice of furniture, the way the light fell from window to window; the weariness after hard work; the affection of mother and daughter; the affection, indeed, that they both had for himself, and he was determined, if he could help it, not to damage the reputation of the daughter of the house. Decent men, he held, don't do such things, and he recounted with some care the heads of the conversation he had had with General Campion in the dressing-room. He seemed to see the cracked wash-bowls in their scrubbed oak settings. Mrs. Wannop's face seemed to grow greyer, more aquiline; a little resentful! She nodded from time to time; either to denote attention or else in sheer drowsiness: "My dear boy," she said at last, "it's pretty damnable to have such things said about you. I can see that. But I seem to have lived in a bath of scandal all my life. Every woman who has reached my age has that feeling. . . Now it doesn't seem to matter . . ." She really nodded nearly off: then she started. "I don't see . . . I really don't see how I can help you as to your reputation. I'd do it if I could: believe me. . . . But I've other things to think of. . . . I've this house to keep going and the children to keep fed and at school. I can't give all the thought I ought to to other people's troubles. . . ." She started into wakefulness and right out of her chair.