“A wigging?” murmured Shelton.

“I don’t know much about it, but from something she let drop it seems you’ve been saying some queer things in your letters to Antonia”; and again he looked at Shelton with his dry smile.

“Queer things?” said the latter angrily.  “What d’ you mean?”

“Oh, don’t ask me.  The Mater thinks she’s in a bad way—­unsettled, or what d’ you call at.  You’ve been telling her that things are not what they seem.  That’s bad, you know”; and still smiling he shook his head.

Shelton dropped his eyes.

“Well, they are n’t!” he said.

“Oh, that’s all right!  But don’t bring your philosophy down here, old chap.”

“Philosophy!” said Shelton, puzzled.

“Leave us a sacred prejudice or two.”

“Sacred!  Nothing’s sacred, except—­” But Shelton did not finish his remark.  “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Ideals, that sort of thing!  You’ve been diving down below the line of ‘practical politics,’ that’s about the size of it, my boy”; and, stooping suddenly, he picked up the last ball.  “There is the Mater!” Shelton saw Mrs. Dennant coming down the lawn with her second daughter, Sybil.

By the time they reached the holm oak the three girls had departed towards the house, walking arm in arm, and Mrs. Dennant was standing there alone, in a grey dress, talking to an undergardener.  Her hands, cased in tan gauntlets, held a basket which warded off the bearded gardener from the severe but ample lines of her useful-looking skirt.  The collie, erect upon his haunches, looked at their two faces, pricking his ears in his endeavour to appreciate how one of these two bipeds differed from the other.

“Thank you; that ‘ll do, Bunyan.  Ah, Dick!  Charmin’ to see you here, at last!”

In his intercourse with Mrs. Dennant, Shelton never failed to mark the typical nature of her personality.  It always seemed to him that he had met so many other ladies like her.  He felt that her undoubtable quality had a non-individual flavour, as if standing for her class.  She thought that standing for herself was not the thing; yet she was full of character.  Tall, with nose a trifle beaked, long, sloping chin, and an assured, benevolent mouth, showing, perhaps, too many teeth—­though thin, she was not unsubstantial.  Her accent in speaking showed her heritage; it was a kind of drawl which disregarded vulgar merits such as tone; leaned on some syllables, and despised the final ’g’—­the peculiar accent, in fact, of aristocracy, adding its deliberate joys to life.