The remark hung unanswered for a moment. The transition had been too quick for Benham's state of mind. “Do you swim, Mr. Prothero?” the lady asked, though a moment before she had determined that she would never ask him a question again. But this time it was a lucky question. “Prothero mopped up the lot of us at Minchinghampton with his diving and swimming,” Benham explained, and the tension was relaxed. Lady Marayne spoke of her own swimming, and became daring and amusing at her difficulties with local feeling when first she swam in the pond. The high road ran along the far side of the pond--“And it didn't wear a hedge or anything,” said Lady Marayne. “That was what they didn't quite like. Swimming in an undraped pond....” Prothero had been examined enough. Now he must be entertained. She told stories about the village people in her brightest manner. The third story she regretted as soon as she was fairly launched upon it; it was how she had interviewed the village dressmaker, when Sir Godfrey insisted upon her supporting local industries. It was very amusing but technical. The devil had put it into her head. She had to go through with it. She infused an extreme innocence into her eyes and fixed them on Prothero, although she felt a certain deepening pinkness in her cheeks was betraying her, and she did not look at Benham until her unhappy, but otherwise quite amusing anecdote, was dead and gone and safely buried under another.... But people ought not to go about having dressmakers for mothers.... And coming into other people's houses and influencing their sons.... 8