"I think perhaps it is," said Rickie. But he went. Never had the
turkey been so athletic, or the plum-pudding tied into its cloth
so tightly. Yet he knew that both these symbols of hilarity had
cost money, and it went to his heart when Mr. Silt said in a
hungry voice, "Have you thought at all of what you want to be?
No? Well, why should you? You have no need to be anything." And
at dessert: "I wonder who Cadover goes to? I expect money will
follow money. It always does." It was with a guilty feeling of
relief that he left for the Pembrokes'.

The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb, or rather
"sububurb,"--the tract called Sawston, celebrated for its
public school. Their style of life, however, was not particularly
suburban. Their house was small and its name was Shelthorpe, but
it had an air about it which suggested a certain amount of money
and a certain amount of taste. There were decent water-colours in
the drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit hung upon the
stairs. A replica of the Hermes of Praxiteles--of course only the
bust--stood in the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, in her
slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and kept the pretty things
well dusted. It was she who insisted on the strip of brown
holland that led diagonally from the front door to the door of
Herbert's study: boys' grubby feet should not go treading on her
Indian square. It was she who always cleaned the picture-frames
and washed the bust and the leaves of the palm. In short, if a
house could speak--and sometimes it does speak more clearly than
the people who live in it--the house of the Pembrokes would have
said, "I am not quite like other houses, yet I am perfectly
comfortable. I contain works of art and a microscope and books.
But I do not live for any of these things or suffer them to