‘Why not with your large front teeth?’ he teased her. ‘Oh, well,’ he added, ‘there’s no harm in fencing or gymnastics either—provided, of course, that you don’t try to wreck Morton Hall like a Sampson wrecking the house of the Philistines; I foresee that that might easily happen—’ Stephen grinned: ‘But it mightn’t if I cut off my hair! May I cut off my hair? Oh, do let me, Father!’ ‘Certainly not, I prefer to risk it,’ said Sir Philip, speaking quite firmly. Stephen went pounding back to the schoolroom. ‘I’m going to those classes!’ she announced in triumph. ‘I’m going to be driven over to Malvern next week; I’m going to begin on Tuesday, and I’m going to learn fencing so as I can kill your brother-in-law who’s a beast to your sister, I’m going to fight duels for wives in distress, like men do in Paris, and I’m going to learn how to lift pianos on my stomach by expanding something—the diapan muscles—and I’m going to cut my hair off!’ she mendaciously concluded, glancing sideways to observe the effect of this bombshell. ‘Bon Dieu, soyez clément!’ breathed Mademoiselle Duphot, casting her eyes to heaven. 3 It was not very long before ex-Sergeant Smylie discovered that in Stephen he had a star pupil. ‘Some day you ought to make a champion fencer, if you work really hard at it, Miss,’ he told her. Stephen did not learn to lift pianos with her stomach, but as time went on she did become quite an expert gymnast and fencer; and as Mademoiselle Duphot confided to Anna, it was after all very charming to watch her, so supple and young and quick in her movements. ‘And she fence like an angel,’ said Mademoiselle fondly, ‘she fence now almost as well as she ride.’ Anna nodded. She herself had seen Stephen fencing many times, and had thought it a fine performance for so young a child, but the fencing displeased her, so that she found it hard to praise Stephen. ‘I hate all that sort of thing for girls,’ she said slowly. ‘But she fence like a man, with such power and such grace,’ babbled Mademoiselle Duphot, the tactless. And now life was full of new interest for Stephen, an interest that centred entirely in her body. She discovered her body for a thing to be cherished, a thing of real value since its strength could rejoice her; and young though she was she cared for her body with great diligence, bathing it night and morning in dull, tepid water—cold baths were forbidden, and hot baths, she had heard, sometimes weakened the muscles. For gymnastics she wore her hair in a pigtail, and somehow that pigtail began to intrude on other occasions. In spite of protests, she always forgot and came down to breakfast with a neat, shining plait, so that Anna gave in in the end and said, sighing: ‘Have your pigtail do, child, if you feel that you must—but I can’t say it suits you, Stephen.’