g between the inside
pages of legible letters of advice. Mr. Carteret was Nick's providence,
just as Nick was looked to, in a general way, to be that of his mother
and sisters, especially since it had become so plain that Percy, who was
not subtly selfish, would operate, mainly with a "six-bore," quite out
of that sphere. It was not for studios certainly that Mr. Carteret sent
cheques; but they were an expression of general confidence in Nick, and
a little expansion was natural to a young man enjoying such a luxury as
that. It was sufficiently felt in Calcutta Gardens that he could be
looked to not to betray such confidence; for Mr. Carteret's behaviour
could have no name at all unless one were prepared to call it
encouraging. He had never promised anything, but he was one of the
delightful persons with whom the redemption precedes or dispenses with
the vow. He had been an early and lifelong friend of the late right
honourable gentleman, a political follower, a devoted admirer, a stanch
supporter in difficult hours. He had never married, espousing nothing
more reproductive than Sir Nicholas's views--he used to write letters to
the _Times_ in favour of them--and had, so far as was known, neither
chick nor child; nothing but an amiable little family of eccentricities,
the flower of which was his odd taste for living in a small, steep,
clean country town, all green gardens and red walls with a girdle of
hedge-rows, all clustered about an immense brown old abbey. When Lady
Agnes's imagination rested upon the future of her second son she liked
to remember that Mr. Carteret had nothing to "keep up": the inference
seemed so direct that he would keep up Nick.

The most important event in the life of this young man had been
incomparably his success, under his father's eyes, more than two years
before, in the sharp contest for Crockhurst--a victory which his
consecrated name, his extreme youth, his ardour in the fray, the marked
personal sympathy of the party, and the attention excited by the fresh
cleverness of his speeches, tinted with young idealism and yet sticking
sufficiently to the question--the burning question which has since
burned out--had made quite splendid. There had been leaders in the
newspapers about it, half in compliment to her husband, who was known to
be failing so prematurely--he was almost as young to die, and to die
famous, for Lady Agnes regarded it as famous, as his son had been to
stand--tributes the bo