“I say he’s good stuff,” said my uncle. “You can say what you like against the aristocracy, George; Lord Carnaby’s rattling good stuff. There’s a sort of _Savoir Faire_, something—it’s an old-fashioned phrase, George, but a good one there’s a Bong-Tong.... It’s like the Oxford turf, George, you can’t grow it in a year. I wonder how they do it. It’s living always on a Scale, George. It’s being there from the beginning.”... “She might,” I said to myself, “be a picture by Romney come alive!” “They tell all these stories about him,” said my uncle, “but what do they all amount to?” “Gods!” I said to myself; “but why have I forgotten for so long? Those queer little brows of hers, the touch of mischief in her eyes—the way she breaks into a smile!” “I don’t blame him,” said my uncle. “Mostly it’s imagination. That and leisure, George. When I was a young man I was kept pretty busy. So were you. Even then—!” What puzzled me more particularly was the queer trick of my memory that had never recalled anything vital of Beatrice whatever when I met Garvell again that had, indeed, recalled nothing except a boyish antagonism and our fight. Now when my senses were full of her, it seemed incredible that I could ever have forgotten.... III “Oh, Crikey!” said my aunt, reading a letter behind her coffee-machine. “_Here’s_ a young woman, George!” We were breakfasting together in the big window bay at Lady Grove that looks upon the iris beds; my uncle was in London. I sounded an interrogative note and decapitated an egg. “Who’s Beatrice Normandy?” asked my aunt. “I’ve not heard of her before.” “She the young woman?” “Yes. Says she knows you. I’m no hand at old etiquette, George, but her line is a bit unusual. Practically she says she’s going to make her mother—” “Eh? Step-mother, isn’t it?” “You seem to know a lot about her. She says ‘mother’—Lady Osprey. They’re to call on me, anyhow, next Wednesday week at four, and there’s got to be you for tea.” “Eh?” “You—for tea. “H’m. She had rather—force of character. When I knew her before.” I became aware of my aunt’s head sticking out obliquely from behind the coffee-machine and regarding me with wide blue curiosity. I met her gaze for a moment, flinched, coloured, and laughed. “I’ve known her longer than I’ve known you,” I said, and explained at length. My aunt kept her eye on me over and round the coffee-machine as I did so. She was greatly interested, and asked several elucidatory questions. “Why didn’t you tell me the day you saw her? You’ve had her on your mind for a week,” she said. “It IS odd I didn’t tell you,” I admitted. “You thought I’d get a Down on her,” said my aunt conclusively. “That’s what you thought” and opened the rest of her letters.