Matheson made Mrs Upton's acquaintance on the following Sunday. He called at the boarding house and had tea in the shabby general sitting-room, and allowed himself to be drawn out by Brenda's mother, who was plainly bent on learning all she could concerning him before and since his intimacy with her daughter. He succeeded on the whole in impressing her favourably, despite a natural prejudice she entertained against the unconventional manner in which the acquaintance had begun, and a further disapproval of the nightly excursions which Brenda made under his escort, a custom which allied itself with her present occupation but was not the custom of her class. Without a home, a girl was so handicapped. She felt their social downfall more bitterly on her daughter's account than ever she had felt it on her own. She resembled her daughter in appearance, and also in manner. Before life had bruised her she had possibly been a very entertaining woman. She possessed still a certain charm, and had an alert way of expressing herself which appealed to the listener. Matheson was conscious primarily of an immense relief. He had rather dreaded this meeting with Brenda's mother. Why he should have expected anything so wildly improbable he could not tell, but he had anticipated a replica of Mrs Aplin. But this little quiet-eyed woman was altogether different; and her bright way of saying the unexpected thing pleased him. If her life had known unusual distress, she had not permitted herself to go down under them, but kept a brave front to the world, hiding even from her daughter the humiliation she experienced in coming back to the place where she and her misfortunes were so well known. Brenda poured out the tea and left the talking principally to the others. She was almost nervously anxious that this man whom she already liked so well should win her mother's approval. Mrs Upton had expressed doubts as to the desirability of this casual friendship. Matheson's request for permission to call had done much towards mislaying these misgivings; but the ultimate decision, Brenda felt, rested with himself. She wanted him to shine, to say brilliant things; and all the while he was behaving in a perfectly correct and commonplace manner. She had not believed he could be so dull. It exasperated her. And when he rose to go he did not suggest, as she hoped he would, that they should go for a walk. Possibly, she reflected resentfully, he had other calls to make and did not want her company. It never occurred to her that he was regulating his conduct with a view to its effect upon her mother. It surprised her when he was gone to hear her mother praise in him the characteristics which she deplored. "But he wasn't at his best," she protested. "I never knew him to be so dull."