ervescence of good spirits as even he seldom boasted.
Wedderburn in contrast seemed graver, supplying in company with Maurice
a solidity to the pair of them that was undeniably beneficial to their
joint impression. They were followed almost immediately by Guy
Hazlewood, who with his long legs came sloping in as self-possessed as
he always was. Perhaps his left eyelid drooped a little lower than it
was accustomed, and perhaps the sidelong smile that gave him a
superficial resemblance to Michael was drawn down to a sharper point of
mockery, but whatever stored-up flashes of mood and fancy Guy had to
deliver, he always drawled them out in the same half-tired voice
emphasized by the same careless indolence of gesture. And so this
evening he was the same Guy Hazlewood, sure of being with his clear-cut
pallor and effortless distinction of bearing, the personality that
everyone would first observe in whatever company he found himself.

"Nigel not here, of course," he drawled. "Let's have a sweep on what
he's been doing. Five bob all round. I say he's just discovered Milton
to be a great poet and is now, reading Lycidas to a spellbound group of
the very heartiest Trindogs in Trinity."

"I think he saw The Perfect Flapper," said Maurice "and has been trying
ever since to find out whether she were a don's daughter or a theatrical
bird of passage."

"I think he's forgotten all about it," pronounced Wedderburn very deeply
indeed.

"I hope he saw that ass Bill Mowbray tearing off in the opposite
direction and went to fetch him back," said Townsend.

"I think he's saying Vespers for the week before last," Michael proposed
as his solution.

Stewart himself came in at that moment, and in answer to an united
demand to know the reason of his lateness embraced in that gentle and
confiding air of his all the company, included them all as it were in an
intimate aside, and with the voice and demeanor of a strayed archangel
explained that the fearful velocity of a pill was responsible for his
unpunctuality.

"But you're quite all right now, Nigel?" inquired Guy. "You could almost
send a testimonial?"

"Oh, rather," murmured Nigel, with tender assurance lighting up his
great, innocent eyes. "I expect, you know, dinner's ready." Then he
plunged his arm through Guy's, and led the way toward the private
dining-room he had actually not forgotten to command.

Dinner, owing to Avery's determined steering of the conversation, was
eaten to