e observed, with an
explosion of repugnance. "Read by suburban shop-girls, I suppose."

II

George had arranged his career in a quite exceptional way. It is true
that chance had served him; but then he had known how to make use of
chance to the highest advantage. The chance that had served him lay in
the facts that Mary Peel had fallen gravely in love with him, that her
sole surviving relative was a rich uncle, and that George's surname was
the same as hers and her uncle's. He had met niece and uncle in Bursley
in the Five Towns, where old Samuel Peel was a personage, and, timidly,
a patron of the arts. Having regard to his golden hair and
affection-compelling appearance, it was not surprising that Mary,
accustomed to the monotony of her uncle's house, had surrendered her
heart to him. And it was not surprising that old Peel had at once
consented to the match, and made a will in favour of Mary and her
offspring. What was surprising was that old Peel should have begun to
part with his money at once, and in large quantities, for he was not of
a very open-handed disposition.

The explanation of old Samuel Peel's generosity was due to his being a
cousin of the Peels of Bursley, the great eighteenth-century family of
earthenware manufacturers. The main branch had died out, the notorious
Carlotta Peel having expired shockingly in Paris, and another young
descendant, Matthew, having been forced under a will to alter his name
to Peel-Swynnerton. So that only the distant cousin, Samuel Peel, was
left, and he was a bachelor with no prospect of ever being anything
else. Now Samuel had made a fortune of his own, and he considered that
all the honour and all the historical splendours of the Peel family were
concentrated in himself. And he tried to be worthy of them. He tried to
restore the family traditions. For this he became a benefactor to his
native town, a patron of the arts, and a candidate for the Staffordshire
County Council. And when Mary set her young mind on a young man of parts
and of ambition, and bearing by hazard the very same name of Peel, old
Samuel Peel said to himself: "The old family name will not die out. It
ought to be more magnificent than ever." He said this also to George
Peel.

Whereupon George Peel talked to him persuasively and sensibly about the
risks and the prizes of the sculptor's career. He explained just how
extremely ambitious he was, and all that he had already done, and all
that he inten