After Stephen has gallantly broken up a dog fight (forever the rescuer), Angela indicates that she has prior knowledge of Stephen's reputation. She is as coy as Stephen is strained and serious: "...she stared rather disconcertingly at Stephen, then smiled as though something she saw had amused her" (Well of Lonliness,132). Angela reveals her source of information about Stephen, "...--yes, it was Mrs. Antrim. She said you were such a wonderful rider but that now, for some reason, you'd given up hunting. Oh, yes, and she said you fenced like a man. Do you fence like a man?'" (132). Both Stephen and the reader know that Mrs. Antrim finds Stephen and her riding abnormal and distasteful, and that Angela is embellishing on an unlikely conversation. When Angela asks her, "'Do you fence like a man?'", the reader wonders if by implication Angela means, "Do you have sex like a man?" "'I don't know,' muttered Stephen'." To which Angela replies, "'Well, I'll tell you whether you do when I've seen you...perhaps some day, Miss Gordon, you'll let me see you?'" (fencing that is) (132).