ally
trust Vyvian not to be doing little private deals of his own; so little,
in fact, did one trust him that the names of dealers were rigorously
taboo now on the Gem.

Peter sighed over this rather tiresome article on lace. He wanted to be
finishing one of his own on well-heads; and then he wanted to go out with
Leslie and look for stone lions for Leslie's gate-posts; and then he and
Leslie were going to dine with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. There were a lot of
jolly things to be done, when he had finished with Vyvian's lace.

Peter was quite enjoying life just now; it was interesting trying to set
the Gem on its legs; there were immense potentialities in the Gem now
that toshery with dealers had been put an end to. And to be allowed to
write _ad infinitum_ about well-heads or anything else was simply
splendid.

Peter heard, with a small, abstracted part of his mind, someone talking
to Hilary in the hall. The low-toned conversation vaguely worried his
subconscious self; he wished people would converse more audibly. But
probably it was private.... Peter suddenly frowned irritably and sat
upright, biting at his pen. He was annoyed with himself. It was so
impertinent, so much the sort of thing he most disliked, to be
speculating, as he had suddenly found himself doing, on the nature of
another person's private business. Had he come to that? It must be some
emanation from that silly, syrupy article of Vyvian's; Vyvian, Peter felt
sure, would have towards a private conversation just such an attitude
that he had detected in himself. He settled himself to his job again,
and made a rather savage excision of two long sentences.

The outer door shut. Peter heard Hilary's steps crossing the hall alone,
rather slowly, till they stopped at the door of the saloon. Hilary came
in; his head was thoughtfully bent, and he didn't at first see Peter at
the table in a corner. When he did see him, he started violently. Hilary
had such weak nerves; he was always starting for no reason.

Peter said, "Things going on all right?" and Hilary said, "Yes, quite,"
and stood silent for a moment, his mobile face flickering nervously, as
it did when he was tired or embarrassed.

"I was looking for Peggy," he added, and went out. He had forgotten,
apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going
shopping and would be out all the afternoon.

Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen. From his expression,
Mrs. Johnson might