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After staring out of the window for a few moments, he observed,

"Oh, by the way, Mother sent me to ask if you'd care to go for a stroll with her. She always walks after tea.

"If it's not raining," he added.

Most definitely I would care to do so. I had an idea that it would take me a very long time to see and hear more of Lady Calderton than I wanted to do.

I have never forgotten that walk across the park; the evening; the scene, and the company approaching perfection. And by the time we returned to the house, more than an hour later, I had pretty well made up my mind about her.

I summed her up then as being competent without being clever, well-read without being learned, charming without being insincere, and, as a mother, loving without being foolish.

I gathered the impression that without being weak, vacillating, and over-suggestible, she was anything but strong-minded, firm and determined; not the type of woman of which the best martyrs are made; not the sort that would shine as a militant suffragette or in a crisis; nor one who would suffer in silence, take a strong line and ensue it to the bitter end; or die for an idea.