leapt far up into the sky. The whole population of Jervaise Clump was
plunged into the full bustle of its daily business. Industrious bees were
methodically visiting the buttercups; their bustling, commercial eagerness
in marked contrast to the bluebottles and flies that seemed to choose
their point of alighting with a sham intentness which did not disguise
their lack of any definite purpose. Now and again a feral, domineering
wasp would join the crowd, coming up with the air of a fussy, inquisitive
overseer.

I looked at my watch and found that the time was a quarter past eight. I
had been asleep for nearly three hours. I had no idea what time the
Jervaises had breakfast, but I knew that it was high time I got back to
the Hall and changed my clothes.

I unbuttoned my coat and looked down at my shirt front and thought how
incongruous and silly that absurd garb of evening dress appeared in those
surroundings.

And as I trotted back to the Hall, I found a symbol in my dress for the
drama of the night. It was, I thought, all artificial and unreal, now that
I looked back upon it in the blaze of a brilliant August morning.
Beginning with the foolishness of a dance at that time of year--even a
"tennis-dance" as they called it--the subsequent theatrical quality of the
night's adventure seemed to me, just then, altogether garish and
fantastic. I began to wonder how far I had dramatised and distorted the
actual events by the exercise of a romantic imagination? In the sweet
freshness of the familiar day, I found myself exceedingly inclined to be
rational. Also, I was aware of being quite unusually hungry.

The front door of the Hall was standing wide open, and save for a glimpse
of the discreet John very busy in his shirt-sleeves, I saw no one about. I
was glad to reach my room unobserved. I knew that my feeling was
unreasonable, but entering that sedate house, under the blaze of the
morning sun, I was ashamed of my tawdry dress. A sense of dissipation and
revelry seemed to hang about me--and of an uncivilised dirtiness.

A cold bath and a change of clothes, however, fully restored my
self-respect; and when I was summoned by the welcome sound of a booming
gong, the balance of sensation was kicking the other beam. My sleep in the
open had left me finally with a feeling of superiority. I was inclined to
despise the feeble, stuffy creatures who had been shut up in a house all
night.

I knew the topography of the house fairly