“Who is she?”

“Lady Ann?  Lord Emsworth’s sister.  She has lived with him since his wife died.  What was I saying?  Oh, yes!  After them come the honorable Frederick Threepwood’s valet and myself—­and then you.”

“I’m not so high up then, after all?”

“Yes, you are.  There’s a whole crowd who come after you.  It all depends on how many other guests there are besides Mr. Peters.”

“I suppose I charge in at the head of a drove of housemaids and scullery maids?”

“My dear Mr. Marson, if a housemaid or a scullery maid tried to get into the steward’s room and have her meals with us, she would be—­”

“Rebuked by the butler?”

“Lynched, I should think.  Kitchen maids and scullery maids eat in the kitchen.  Chauffeurs, footmen, under-butler, pantry boys, hall boy, odd man and steward’s-room footman take their meals in the servants’ hall, waited on by the hall boy.  The stillroom maids have breakfast and tea in the stillroom, and dinner and supper in the hall.  The housemaids and nursery maids have breakfast and tea in the housemaid’s sitting-room, and dinner and supper in the hall.  The head housemaid ranks next to the head stillroom maid.  The laundry maids have a place of their own near the laundry, and the head laundry maid ranks above the head housemaid.  The chef has his meals in a room of his own near the kitchen.  Is there anything else I can tell you, Mr. Marson?”

Ashe was staring at her with vacant eyes.  He shook his head dumbly.

“We stop at Swindon in half an hour,” said Joan softly.  “Don’t you think you would be wise to get out there and go straight back to London, Mr. Marson?  Think of all you would avoid!”

Ashe found speech.

“It’s a nightmare!”

“You would be far happier in Arundell Street.  Why don’t you get out at Swindon and go back?”

Ashe shook his head.

“I can’t.  There’s—­there’s a reason.”

Joan picked up her magazine again.  Hostility had come out from the corner into which she had tucked it away and was once more filling her mind.  She knew it was illogical, but she could not help it.  For a moment, during her revelations of servants’ etiquette, she had allowed herself to hope that she had frightened her rival out of the field, and the disappointment made her feel irritable.  She buried herself in a short story, and countered Ashe’s attempts at renewing the conversation with cold monosyllables, until he ceased his efforts and fell into a moody silence.

He was feeling hurt and angry.  Her sudden coldness, following on the friendliness with which she had talked so long, puzzled and infuriated him.  He felt as though he had been snubbed, and for no reason.

He resented the defensive magazine, though he had bought it for her himself.  He resented her attitude of having ceased to recognize his existence.  A sadness, a filmy melancholy, crept over him.  He brooded on the unutterable silliness of humanity, especially the female portion of it, in erecting artificial barriers to friendship.  It was so unreasonable.