ounds a little difficult, chiefly because they
were all married so frequently and so rapidly, but really is simplicity
itself.)

"I live with my uncle too," Urquhart said, and the fact formed a shadowy
bond. But Peter's tone had struck a note of flatness that faintly
indicated a lack of enthusiasm as to the menage. This note was, to
Peter's delicately attuned ears, absent from Urquhart's voice. Peter
wondered if Lord Hugh's brother (supposing it to be a paternal uncle)
resembled Lord Hugh. To resemble Lord Hugh, Peter had always understood
(till three years ago, when his mother had fallen into silence on that
and all other topics) was to be of a charm.... One spoke of it with a
faint sigh. And yet of a charm that somehow had lacked something, the
intuitive Peter had divined; perhaps it had been too splendid, too
fortunate, for a lady who had loved all small, weak, unlucky things.
Anyhow, not long after Lord Hugh's death (he was killed out hunting) she
had married Mr. Margerison, the poorest clergyman she could find, and the
most devoted to the tending of the unprosperous.

Peter remembered her--compassionate, delicate, lovely, full of laughter,
with something in the dance of her vivid dark-blue eyes that hinted at
radiant and sad memories. She had loved Lord Hugh for a glorious and
brief space of time. The love had perhaps descended, a hereditary
bequest, with the deep blue eyes, to her son. Peter would have understood
the love; the thing he would not have understood was the feeling that
had flung her on the tide of reaction at Mr. Margerison's feet. Mr.
Margerison was a hard liver and a tremendous giver. Both these things
had come to mean a great deal to Sylvia Urquhart--much more than they
had meant to the girl Sylvia Hope.

And hence Peter, who lay and looked at Lord Hugh Urquhart's son with
wide, bright eyes. With just such eyes--only holding, let us hope, an
adoration more masked--Sylvia Hope had long ago looked at Lord Hugh,
seeing him beautiful, delicately featured, pale, and fair of skin, built
with a strong fineness, and smiling with pleasant eyes. Lord Hugh's
beauty of person and charm of manner had possibly (not certainly) meant
more to Sylvia Hope than his son's meant to her son; and his prowess at
football (if he had any) had almost certainly meant less. But, apart from
the glamour of physical skill and strength and the official glory of
captainship, the same charm worked on mother and son. The soft, quic