if one quite withdrew from all the people one doesn't quite
like, one's world would get very limited.'

'Well, yes'--she wrinkled her forehead in doubt--'only they should know
the terms, that's all.'

It was probable that Miss Varley might have disapproved of the manner of
the homeward journey in the motor, for the Crevequers, who were slightly
inexperienced, drove, as they had suggested, by turns; and behind
Venables' screen of serenity his real self undoubtedly watched
anxiously, and occasionally looked out, betraying itself by the nervous
tension of the hands waiting in readiness to seize the wheel; the screen
was, indeed, rather insultingly flimsy. They ran along the white coast
road, with the gold of the west behind them, and the pale blue winter
sea beside them, and the bright city of many hues growing larger in
front of them as they circled the bay. They went much too fast, and it
was very amusing.

'You must show Baja to my mother sometime,' Venables said. 'She has only
visited it with the native guides so far; and you will be able to tell
her so much that's interesting and new--very new.'

Betty sighed after that renounced game.

'I'm afraid not, do you know.... Tommy, you awfully nearly slew that
goat. And I'm sure it's my turn now.'

She had swerved from the subject with a laudable impulse of shame, her
first in this matter. At the same time, she knew very well that
Venables minded nothing; also, that if she had looked at him his amused
eyes would have twinkled into hers. That she did not might have been
taken to imply in her the rudiments of a growing conscience; or possibly
of a feeling that, though she and Tommy might laugh at a person's
mother, the person might well keep out of it. His not resenting it--but
this she did not word to herself at all, for she would not for some time
know it--showed that he accepted so much, easily and without surprise.
Why resent that, of all things? it seemed to imply. It was, indeed,
hardly worth a comment; it was so wholly in keeping; as he would have
said, so obvious.

This easy, unsurprised acceptance of things as they were, in which
Prudence Varley might have discovered insult, bore to the Crevequers no
message, no implication. Their attitude towards such tolerance was the
measure of their inapprehensiveness.

But, as Betty had had her moment of half-realization, so Tommy had his.
Perhaps such moments came to the one whose turn to drive it was not,
and who had