The new doormat expressed Mrs. Haim’s sole and characteristic criticism of the organism into which she had so unassumingly entered.  Secure in the adoration of Mr. Haim, she might safely have turned the place upside-down and proved to the Grove that she could act the mistress with the best of them; but she changed nothing except the doormat.  The kitchen and scullery had already been hers before the eye of Mr. Haim had fallen upon her; she was accustomed to them and had largely fashioned their arrangements.  Her own furniture, such of it as was retained, had been put into the spare bedroom and the kitchen, and was hardly noticeable there.  The dramatic thing for her to do would have been to engage another charwoman.  But Mrs. Haim was not dramatic; she was accommodating.  She fitted herself in.  The answer to people who asked what Mr. Haim could see in her, was that what Mr. Haim first saw was her mere way of existing, and that in the same way she loved.  At her tea-table, as elsewhere, she exhibited no special quality; she said little; she certainly did not shine.  Nevertheless the three men were quite happy and at ease, because her way of existing soothed and reinspired them.  George especially got gay; and he narrated the automobile adventure of the afternoon with amusing gusto.  He was thereby a sort of hero, and he liked that.  He was bound by his position in the world and by his clothes and his style to pretend to some extent that the adventure was much less extraordinary to him than it seemed to them.  The others made no pretence.  They were open-mouthed.  Their attitude admitted frankly that above them was a world to which they could not climb, that they were not familiar with it and knew nothing about it.  They admired George; they put it to his credit that he was acquainted with these lofty matters and moved carelessly and freely among them; and George too somehow thought that credit was due to him and that his superiority was genuine.

“And do you mean to say she’d never met you before?” exclaimed Mr. Haim.

“Never in this world!”

Mr. Prince remarked calmly:  “You must have had a very considerable effect on her then.”  His eyes twinkled.

George flushed slightly.  The idea had already presented itself to him with great force.  “Oh no!” He negligently pooh-poohed it.

“Well, does she go about asking every man she meets what his Christian name is?”

“I expect she just does.”

There was silence for a moment.  Mrs. Haim refilled a cup.

“Something will have to be done soon about these motor-cars,” observed Mr. Haim at length, sententiously, in the vein of ‘Mustard and Cress.’  “That’s very evident.”

“They cost so much,” said Mr. Prince.  “Why!  They cost as much as a house, some of them.”

“More!” said George.

“Nay, nay!” Mr. Haim protested.  The point had come at which his imagination halted.

“Anyhow, you had a lucky escape,” said Mr. Prince.  “You might have been lamed for life—­or anything.”