It is unpleasant to be half starved. It is unpleasant to be cooped up
in a country-house in winter with nothing to do. It is unpleasant to
have to sit at meals and listen to the only girl you have ever really
loved being bullyragged by an old lady with six chins. And all these
unpleasantnesses were occurring to Peter simultaneously. It is highly
creditable to him that the last should completely have outweighed the
others.

He was generally alone. Mr. Rastall-Retford, who would have been better
than nothing as a companion, was a man who enjoyed solitude. He was a
confirmed vanisher. He would be present at one moment, the next he
would have glided silently away. And, even on the rare occasions when
he decided not to vanish, he seldom did much more than clear his throat
nervously and juggle with his pince-nez.

Peter, in his boyhood, had been thrilled once by a narrative of a man
who got stuck in the Sargasso Sea. It seemed to him now that the
monotony of the Sargasso Sea had been greatly exaggerated.

Nemesis was certainly giving Peter his due. He had wormed his way into
the Rastall-Retford home-circle by grossly deceitful means. The moment
he heard that Eve had gone to live with Mrs. Rastall-Retford, and had
ascertained that the Rastall-Retford with whom he had been at Cambridge
and whom he still met occasionally at his club when he did not see him
first, was this lady's son, he had set himself to court young Mr.
Rastall-Retford. He had cornered him at the club and begun to talk
about the dear old 'Varsity days, ignoring the embarrassment of the
latter, whose only clear recollection of the dear old 'Varsity days as
linking Peter and himself was of a certain bump-supper night, when
sundry of the festive, led and inspired by Peter, had completely