He seemed enthusiastic, but Dorothy could not make out whether he believed her or not, and she rather wished she had kept the relationship for the dressing-room. She hoped that Sylvia would not give Lonsdale an impression that she claimed to be his first cousin; this abrupt plunge into the whirlpool of society might make her act extravagantly. What a pity that she had not known who he was before they met, and "Oh!" she cried, aloud. "What's the matter?" Clarehaven asked. "Nothing. At least I think I touched a fish," said Dorothy. But her exclamation was caused by dismay at recalling that she had addressed him as "Arthur Lonsdale, Esquire," when for the first time in her life she might have written "The Honorable Arthur Lonsdale," for everybody to see. What must he have thought of her ignorance? And now here in a canoe with her was Lord Clarehaven, but, owing to the foolish modesty that English titles affect, she did not know if he was a marquis, an earl, a viscount, or a mere baron. The prospect of the green river was leaden with the thought of her stupidity. "You're looking very sad," said Clarehaven. "What's the matter?" "I was thinking how beautiful it was here," she sighed. "Topping, isn't it?" "Topping," she echoed, awarding to the utterance of the epithet as much emotion as if it were robbed from Shakespeare's magic store. Amid a sweet smell of grass and to the accompaniment of lapping water and a small sibilant wind they lunched on the salmon and mayonnaise, the prawns in aspic, the galantine and cold chicken, the meringues and strawberries of how many Oxford picnics. Above them dreamed a huge sky; elm-trees guarded the near horizon; wasps had not begun, nor did Sylvia tease Dorothy about being related to Lonsdale when Clarehaven presented them as long-lost cousins. By the end of the afternoon Dorothy had sufficiently confirmed her admirer's first impression to be invited to lunch with him at Christ Church the following day, in which invitation Sylvia was of course included. Then slowly they drifted back down the river, on the dimples and eddies of which the overhanging trees cast a patina as upon the muscles of an ancient bronze. "How unreal the theater seems!" sighed Dorothy when they drove up to the stage-door. "Does it?" Sylvia laughed. "It seems to me much more real than our pretty behavior this afternoon." V