Viviette rose. "I must tidy myself for lunch."

They walked to the house together. On parting she put out both her
hands.

"Do be reasonable, Dick, and don't look for slights in what you call
Austin's airy ways. He is awfully fond of you, and would not hurt you
for the world."

At the luncheon table, however, Austin did hurt him, in utter
unconsciousness, by his gay command of the situation, his eager talk
with Viviette of things Dick did not understand, places he had not
visited, books he had never read, pictures he had never seen. It was
heartache rather than envy. He did not grudge Austin his scholarship and
brilliance. But his soul sank at the sight of Austin and Viviette moving
as familiars in a joyous world as remote from him as Neptune. Mrs. Ware
kept Katherine Holroyd engaged in mild talk of cooks and curates, while
the other two maintained their baffling conversation, half banter, half
serious, on a bewildering number of topics, and poor Dick remained as
dumb as the fish and cutlets he was eating. He sat at the head of the
table, Mrs. Ware at the foot. On his right hand sat Katherine Holroyd,
on his left Viviette, and between her and his mother was Austin. With
Viviette talking to Austin and Mrs. Ware to Katherine, he felt lonely
and disregarded in a kind of polar waste of snowy tablecloth. Once
Katherine, escaping from Mrs. Ware's platitudinous ripple, took pity on
him, and asked him when he was going to redeem his promise and show her
his collection of armour and weapons. Dick brightened. This was the only
keen interest he had in life outside things of earth and air and stream.
He had inherited a good family collection, and had added to it
occasionally, as far as his slender means allowed. He had read deeply,