invitations, and Lady Viping came and pressed her
to come to dinner and rapped her elbow with her lorgnette to emphasize
her invitation. And Lady Harman after a still moment for reflection
athwart which the word Autonomy flickered, accepted this invitation
also.

Sec.3

Mr. Brumley hovered for a few moments in the hall conversing with Lady
Beach-Mandarin's butler, whom he had known for some years and helped
about a small investment, and who was now being abjectly polite and
grateful to him for his attention. It gave Mr. Brumley a nice feudal
feeling to establish and maintain such relationships. The furry-eyed boy
fumbled with the sticks and umbrellas in the background and wondered if
he too would ever climb to these levels of respectful gilt-tipped
friendliness. Mr. Brumley hovered the more readily because he knew Lady
Harman was with the looking-glass in the little parlour behind the
dining-room on her way to the outer world. At last she emerged. It was
instantly manifest to Mr. Brumley that she had expected to find him
there. She smiled frankly at him, with the faintest admission of
complicity in her smile.

"Taxi, milady?" said the butler.

She seemed to reflect. "No, I will walk." She hesitated over a glove
button. "Mr. Brumley, is there a Tube station near here?"

"Not two minutes. But can't I perhaps take you in a taxi?"

"I'd rather walk."

"I will show you----"

He found himself most agreeably walking off with her.

Still more agreeable things were to follow for Mr. Brumley.

She appeared to meditate upon a sudden idea. She disregarded some
conversational opening of his that he forgot in the instant. "Mr.
Brumley," she said, "I didn't intend to go directly home."

"I'm altogether at your service," said Mr. Brumley.

"At least," said Lady Harman with that careful truthfulness of hers, "it
occurred to me during lunch that I wouldn't go directly home."

Mr. Brumley reined in an imagination that threatened to bolt with him.

"I want," said Lady Harman, "to go to Kensington Gardens, I think. This
can't be far from Kensington Gardens--and I want to sit there on a green
chair and--meditate--and afterwards I want to find a tube railway or
something that will take me back to Putney. There is really no need for
me to go directly home.... It's very stupid of me but I don't know my
way about London as a rational creature should do. So will you take me
and put me in a green chair and--tell me how afterward