course without taking breath, "Eggs and bacon. So English. Isn't
there a story of a man who starved to death on a walking-tour because he
could no longer endure to eat eggs and bacon? And when you have eaten
something you must tell us what you have all four been doing while my
husband and I were away. So far as I can understand you have turned the
universe completely inside out. We came back believing that we return to
the Farm, but I think it has become a Fortress...."

I ventured a glance at her husband. These flickering allusions of hers to
the tragedy that was threatening him, seemed to me indiscreet and rather
too frivolous. But when I saw his look of puzzled wonder and admiration, I
began to appreciate the subtlety and wisdom of her method. Using me as a
convenient intermediary, she was breaking the news by what were, to him,
almost inappreciable degrees. He took in her hints so slowly. He was not
sure from moment to moment whether or not she was in earnest.
Nevertheless, I recognised, I thought, at least one cause for
perturbation. He had been perceptibly ruffled and uneasy at the reference
to an understanding between his son and Brenda. Probably the fear of that
complication had been in his mind for some time past.

Mrs. Banks had slid away to the subject of local scenery.

"It is beautiful in its own way," she was saying, "but I feel with Arthur
that it has an air of being so--preserved. It is so proper, well-adjusted,
I forget the English word ..."

I suggested "trim" as a near translation of "propre" and "bien-ajuste."

"Trim, yes," she agreed enthusiastically. "My daughter tells me you are an
author. There are three lime trees in the pasture and the cattle have
eaten the branches as high as they can reach, so that now the trees have
the precise shape of a bell. Even the trees in the Park, you see, are
trim--not, it is true, like Versailles, where the poor things are made to
grow according to plan--but all the county is one great landscape garden;
all of England, nearly. Don't you agree with me? One feels that there must
always be a game-keeper or a policeman just round the corner."

She waited for my answer this time, and something in the eagerness of her
expression begged me to play up to her lead.

"I know exactly what you mean," I said, intensely aware of Anne's
proximity. "I was thinking something of the same kind, only this evening,
when I went to meet Arthur in the wood. He and I were discussing i