tension in this ridiculously circumscribed
railway-carriage. Would it be released if he were to inform her frankly
of what had happened, or would such, an admission be an indiscretion
from which their relationship would never recover? After all she was his
mother, and there must positively exist in her inmost self the power of
understanding what he had done. Some part of the impulse which had
actuated his behaviour would surely find a root in the heart of the
handsome woman who travelled with such becoming repose on the seat
opposite to him. He forgot to bother about himself in this sudden new
pleasure of observation that seemed to endow him with undreamed-of
opportunities of distraction and, what was more important, with a stable
sense of his own individuality. How young his mother looked! Until now
he had taken her youth for granted, but she must be nearly forty. It was
scarcely credible that this tall slim creature with the proud, upcurving
mouth and lustrous grey eyes was his own mother. He thought of his
friends' homes that were presided over by dumpy women in black silk with
greying hair. Even Alan's mother, astonishingly pretty though she was,
seemed in the picture he conjured of her to look faded beside his own.

And while he was pondering his mother's beauty, the train reached the
station at which they must alight for Basingstead. There was Alan in
white flannels on the platform, there too was Mrs. Ross; and as she
greeted his mother Michael's thoughts went back to the day he saw these
two come together at Carlington Road, and by their gracious encounter
drive away the shadow of Nurse.

"I vote we walk," said Alan. "Mrs. Fane and Aunt Maud can drive in the
pony-chaise, and then your luggage can all come up at once in the cart."

So it was arranged, and as Michael watched his mother and Mrs. Ross
drive off, he was strangely reminded of a picture that he had once
dearly loved, a picture by Flaxman of Hera and Athene driving down from
Olympus to help the Greeks. [Greek: Leukolenos Here]--that was his
mother, and [Greek: glaukopis 'AThene]--that was Mrs. Ross. He could
actually remember the line in the Iliad that told of the gates of
heaven, where the Hours keep watch, opening for the goddesses'
descent--[Greek: automatai de pulai mukon ouranoi as echon Orai]. At the
same time for all his high quotations, Michael could not help smiling at
the dolefully senescent dun pony being compared to the golden steeds of
Her