same mincing, finicking pronunciation that had pleased the boy Peter
eight years ago. "Only my sight isn't what it was. _Are_ you changed at
all? Do you still like Bow rose-bowls better than anything except Denis?
Denis is coming here soon, you know, so I shall be able to discover. Oh,
I beg pardon--Mr. Peter Margerison, Mr. Cheriton."

Mr. Cheriton was a dark, sturdy young man with an aggressive jaw, who
bowed without a smile and looked one rather hard in the face. Peter was
a little frightened of him--these curt, brisk manners made him nervous
always--and felt a desire to edge behind Hilary. He gathered that Hilary
and Cheriton did not very much like one another. He knew what that slight
nervous contraction of Hilary's forehead meant.

Dinner was interesting. Lord Evelyn told pleasant and funny stories in
his high, tittering voice, addressing himself to all his guests, but
looking at Peter when he came to his points. (People usually looked at
Peter when they came to the points of their stories.) Hilary talked a
good deal and drank a good deal and ate very little, and was obviously
on very friendly terms with Lord Evelyn and on no terms at all with Mr.
Cheriton. Cheriton looked a good deal at Peter, with very bright and
direct eyes, and flung into the conversation rather curt and spasmodic
utterances in a slightly American accent. He seemed a very decided and
very much alive young man, a little rude, thought Peter, but possibly
that was only his trans-Atlantic way, if, as his voice hinted, he came
from America. Once or twice Peter met the direct and vivid regard fixed
upon him, and nearly was startled into "I beg your pardon," for there
seemed to him an odd element of accusation in the look.

"But it isn't my fault," he told himself reassuringly. "I've not done
anything, I'm sure I haven't. It's just the way he's made, I expect. Or