"Rather fascinating," Peter said. It was a pity that Hilary always
so disliked any work he had to do. Work--a terrific, insatiable god,
demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till
twilight--so Hilary saw it. The idea of being horrible, all the concrete
details into which it was translated were horrible too.

"If it was me," said Peter, "I should minister to my own appetite, no one
else's. Bother the cultivated resident. He'd jolly well have to take what
I gave him. And glass and mosaic and lace--what glorious things to write
about.... I rather love Lord Evelyn, don't you."

Peter remembered him at Astleys, in Berkshire--Urquhart's uncle, tall
and slim and exquisite, with beautiful waistcoats and white, attractive,
nervous hands, that played with a monocle, and a high-pitched voice, and
a whimsical, prematurely worn-out face, and a habit of screwing up
short-sighted eyes and saying, with his queer, closed enunciation, "Quate
charming. Quate." He had always liked Peter, who had been a gentle and
amused boy and had reminded him of Sylvia Hope, lacking her beauty, but
with a funny touch of her charm. Peter had loved the things he loved,
too--the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through
a recklessly extravagant life. Peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his
first visit to Astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of
being in Urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a
Bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old Japan May
flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "New Canton, 1750."

"Lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "Lake the sort
of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and
screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on Peter with whimsical