Prothero?"
Prothero looked mulish. "My mother is a dressmaker," he said. "In
Brixton. She doesn't do particularly badly--or well. I live on my
scholarship. I have lived on scholarships since I was thirteen.
And you see, Lady Marayne, Brixton is a poor hunting country."
Lady Marayne felt she had unmasked Prothero almost indecently.
Whatever happened there must be no pause. There must be no sign of
a hitch.
"But it's good at tennis," she said. "You DO play tennis, Mr.
Prothero?"
"I--I gesticulate," said Prothero.
Lady Marayne, still in flight from that pause, went off at a
tangent.
"Poff, my dear," she said, "I've had a diving-board put at the deep
end of the pond."
The remark hung unanswered for a moment. The transition had been
too quick for Benham's state of mind.
"Do you swim, Mr. Prothero?" the lady asked, though a moment before
she had determined that she would never ask him a question again.
But this time it was a lucky question.
"Prothero mopped up the lot of us at Minchinghampton with his diving
and swimming," Benham explained, and the tension was relaxed.
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