“Now, I have a prejudice against ’bus-conductors,” said Kew.

“Why?” asked Mr. Russell rather indignantly.

“I can’t explain it.  If I could, it wouldn’t be a prejudice, it would be an opinion.  But—­well—­just think....  The trousered ’bus-conductors probably ask her to walk out with them in Victoria Park on Sundays.”

“I see your point,” said Mr. Russell.

“You are about double as old as she is—­if I may say so—­and you are not one of the Family, two great advantages.  You know, Jay has suffered from not meeting enough Older and Wiser people.  She has had to worry out things too much by herself; she has never been talked to by grown-ups whom she could respect.  Anonyma never talked with us, though she occasionally ‘Had a Good Talk.’  She never played, but sometimes suggested ‘Having a Good Game.’  It’s different, somehow.  You, Older and Wiser without being too old or too wise, might impress Jay a lot, I think, because you don’t say overmuch.  And I want you to tell her something of what I feel about it too.”

“I never realised before that from your point of view there was any advantage in being Older and Wiser,” said Mr. Russell.

“You don’t mind my saying all this?” said Kew.  It was an assumption rather than a question.

“Not at all.  But I don’t understand exactly what you want me to do.”

“To give up this idiotic motor tour,” said Kew.  “And go back to London, and talk Jay out of her ’bus-ism.  I want her to leave it off, and let the Family discover her romantically enjoying some passable imitation of her Secret World.  I want the Family never to know of all that lay between.  I do want it all to come right.  I’m going off to-day, and I may not see her again.  And I know hardly any trustable person but you.”

“Right,” said Mr. Russell.

He thought:  It’s too funny to be true, but if it isn’t true, I shall be surprised.

Kew enlarged to him on the details of his mission.

On the breakfast table, when they returned, they found a letter from Jay, evidently written for private circulation in the Family.

Dear Kew—­I have just come in from a walk almost as exciting as it was beautiful.  We walked through our village, which clings to both sides of a crack-like harbour that might just contain a carefully navigated walnut-shell.  The village is grey and white, all its walls are whitewashed, all its roofs are slate with cushions of stone-crop clinging to them.  Sea-thistles grow outside its doors, seagulls are its only birds.  The slope on which it stands is so steep that the main road is on a level with the roofs on one side, and if you were absentminded, you might walk on to a roof and fall down a chimney before you became aware that you had strayed from the street.  But we were not absent-minded.  We sang Loud Songs all the way.  We ran across the grass after the shadows of the round clouds that bowled across the sky.  In single file we followed