I might have a short
conversation with you, madam. I am Hector's father, as this bright
Britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so.

STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we've ad
you as long to polish up as we've ad im, perhaps you'll begin to look a
little bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You've
got too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right,
Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan't intrude. [He nods affably to
Malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling].

VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has been
rude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur.

MALONE. Your what?

VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car at
seventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependent
on our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of course
we are dependent on him.

MALONE. I've noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishman
gets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on.
However, you needn't apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose.
By doing so I learnt that you're staying here in Grannida with a party
of English, including my son Hector.

VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had to
follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came
here. Won't you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two books
on it].

MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down,
examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the
books. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe?

VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes.

MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs as
follows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to take
out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they
have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache
and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker will
rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet."
[He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets
his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don't
know on what terms young people associate in English society; but in
America that note would be considered to imply a very considerable
degree of affe