ows in cleaning them, and put blacking on brown boots. Two indoor
servants had differing views as to the frontier between the kingdom of
his duties and the kingdom of theirs, in fact, it was the usual spacious
household of successful trade in a provincial town.

Denry got to Bycars Lane without a breakdown. This was in the days,
quite thirteen years ago, when automobilists made their wills and took
food supplies when setting forth. Hence Denry was pleased. The small but
useful fund of prudence in him, however, forbade him to run the car
along the unending sinuous drive. The May night was fine, and he left
the loved vehicle with his new furs in the shadow of a monkey-tree near
the gate.

As he was crunching towards the door, he had a beautiful idea: "I'll
take 'em all out for a spin. There'll just be room!" he said.

Now even to-day, when the very cabman drives his automobile, a man who
buys a motor cannot say to a friend: "I've bought a motor. Come for a
spin," in the same self-unconscious accents as he would say: "I've
bought a boat. Come for a sail," or "I've bought a house. Come and look
at it." Even to-day and in the centre of London there is still something
about a motor--well something.... Everybody who has bought a motor, and
everybody who has dreamed of buying a motor, will comprehend me. Useless
to feign that a motor is the most banal thing imaginable. It is not. It
remains the supreme symbol of swagger. If such is the effect of a motor
in these days and in Berkeley Square, what must it have been in that dim
past, and in that dim town three hours by the fastest express from
Euston? The imagination must be forced to the task of answering this
question. Then will it be understood that Denry was simply tingling with
pride.

"Master in?" he demanded of the servant, who was correctly starched, but
unkempt in detail.

"No, sir. He ain't been in for tea."

("I shall take the women out then," said Denry to himself.)

"Come in! Come in!" cried a voice from the other side of the open door
of the drawing-room, Nellie's voice! The manners and state of a family
that has industrially risen combine the spectacular grandeur of the
caste to which it has climbed with the ease and freedom of the caste
which it has quitted.

"Such a surprise!" said the voice. Nellie appeared, rosy.

Denry threw his new motoring cap hastily on to the hall-stand. No! He
did not hope that Nellie would see it. He hoped that she would not see