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figures, and Philip smiled
calmly, seeing nothing extraordinary in the spectacle. Then as the two men
came nearer he exclaimed: “Why, one of them’s Ward—a fellow I’ve asked
in for to-morrow. Awfully nice chap—I’m sure you’ll like him He’s
turning now—perhaps he’ll see us.”
    As the skiffs curved back Philip shouted, and one of the men looked up,
smiled shyly, and drew in at the bank. Then, as he clambered out (a somewhat
risky business where the bank was steep) a not un usual accident occurred. A
tuft of grass by which he was hauling himself on to the bank gave way, and
with a mighty splash and a not too polite ejaculation he fell backwards into
the water.
    Philip turned very pale and looked first this way and then that, as if
uncertain whether to attempt a rescue himself or to summon aid from the inn
near by. “It’s dangerous—” he cried excitedly. “The current is swift
and there are reeds.”
    Stella, meanwhile, was roaring with laughter. It was the sort of thing
that always amused her in kinema pictures. She was helpless with
merriment.
    Before she had finished laughing and before Philip had decided what, if
anything, he should do, the victim had swum to an easy landing-place and was
climbing to land. Voices from within the Pike and Eel gave an uproarious and
ironical cheer.
    The victim advanced towards Philip, shaking himself and smiling. “That’s
saved me a bath when I get home,” he said. His smile was winsome and rather
shy, and he laughingly declined to shake hands with them because he was both
wet and muddy.
    “It was very—very funny,” said Stella, looking at him.
    He laughed again, a laugh that was rather like the bark of a happy dog.
“Here’s my friend coming along. He’s got a motor-bike. I’d better get home
and change, I think.”
    “Then we shall see you again to-morrow?” said Mrs. Monsell.
    “I shall be very pleased to come.”
    He smiled apologetically and then, bidding them good-bye, went off to join
his friend.
    Over tea in the Pike and Eel he was discussed: “Did you notice, Stella,”
said Mrs. Monsell, “how shy he was?—Really, to be embarrassed so
charmingly is almost an accomplishment. It puts you at your ease.”
    Stella said: “He’s like a Hungarian. He’s big and he swims and he—he
laughs at danger. I told you I’d tell you when I met an Englishman like a
Hungarian. Well, he is.”
    Philip smiled. “You seem to have summed him up very quickly.”
    “Yes, I always do. And I know he’s like a Hungarian. But I don’t know whether I like him or not.”
VI
    The lunch-party was neither a success nor a failure, but a
phenomenon. Mrs. Monsell, discussing the matter afterwards, declared that she
had never been so completely bored in her life. The men whom Philip had
invited were clever and interesting, but somehow they mixed badly. Ward,
especially, was rather grimly silent, though he became charming as soon as
the demand for coffee gave him a chance to be up and doing something.
    Philip, leaning back in his chair, looked from face to face and wondered
what was the matter. Was his mother over-aweing them? It did not seem
probable, for Stella, whom nobody could over-awe, was just as silent as the
others. Then what was it? There was certainly a queer something in the
atmosphere—a something, moreover, that had to do with Stella.
    While they sat over their coffee Stella went to the piano and sang. She
seemed strangely nervous or else uninterested, and accompanied herself very
badly. After singing two verses of an old Danubian folk-tune that Philip knew
to possess many more than two, she stopped, swung round suddenly on the
stool, and exclaimed: “Sorry, but I don’t feel much like singing.. But I’ll
recite you a little Hungarian poem about springtime. You won’t understand the
words, but perhaps the sound of them will give you the sense.” She began to
recite very beautifully and softly, but she rather