Mrs. Hignett started violently.

"Why do you say that?"

"Eh?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh, well, he's a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry and all that."

"There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and
retiring temperament and sees few women. He is almost a recluse."

Sam was aware of this and had frequently regretted it. He had always
been fond of his cousin and in that half-amused and rather patronising
way in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren
who run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if
Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman
whom from his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of
the Wash-outs much might have been made of him. Both at school and at
Oxford, Eustace had been--if not a sport--at least a decidedly cheery
old bean. Sam remembered Eustace at school breaking gas globes with a
slipper in a positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford
playing up to him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had
done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the
Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg,
and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down
in the country miles away from anywhere.