For a day or two after this notable encounter between tabooer and taboo-breaker, Philip moved about in a most uneasy state of mind. He lived in constant dread of receiving a summons as a party to an assault upon a most respectable and respected landed proprietor who preserved more pheasants and owned more ruinous cottages than anybody else (except the duke) round about Brackenhurst. Indeed, so deeply did he regret his involuntary part in this painful escapade that he never mentioned a word of it to Robert Monteith; nor did Frida either. To say the truth, husband and wife were seldom confidential one with the other. But, to Philip's surprise, Bertram's prediction came true; they never heard another word about the action for trespass or the threatened prosecution for assault and battery. Sir Lionel found out that the person who had committed the gross and unheard-of outrage of lifting an elderly and respectable English landowner like a baby in arms on his own estate, was a lodger at Brackenhurst, variously regarded by those who knew him best as an escaped lunatic, and as a foreign nobleman in disguise, fleeing for his life from a charge of complicity in a Nihilist conspiracy: he wisely came to the conclusion, therefore, that he would not be the first to divulge the story of his own ignominious defeat, unless he found that damned radical chap was going boasting around the countryside how he had balked Sir Lionel. And as nothing was further than boasting from Bertram Ingledew's gentle nature, and as Philip and Frida both held their peace for good reasons of their own, the baronet never attempted in any way to rake up the story of his grotesque disgrace on what he considered his own property. All he did was to double the number of keepers on the borders of his estate, and to give them strict notice that whoever could succeed in catching the “damned radical” in flagrante delicto, as trespasser or poacher, should receive most instant reward and promotion. During the next few weeks, accordingly, nothing of importance happened, from the point of view of the Brackenhurst chronicler; though Bertram was constantly round at the Monteiths' garden for afternoon tea or a game of lawn-tennis. He was an excellent player; lawn-tennis was most popular “at home,” he said, in that same mysterious and non-committing phrase he so often made use of. Only, he found the racquets and balls (very best London make) rather clumsy and awkward; he wished he had brought his own along with him when he came here. Philip noticed his style of service was particularly good, and even wondered at times he did not try to go in for the All England Championship. But Bertram surprised him by answering, with a quiet smile, that though it was an excellent amusement, he had too many other things to do with his time to make a serious pursuit of it.