The _Robinsons_. Really, you know ..."

The sweet voice had a characteristic, vibrating break of contempt. Hilary
had always hated the Robinsons, who now had it practically all. Hilary
looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for
the last week. The Margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; Hilary
could not pretend that he had loved him. Peter had, as far as he had been
permitted to do so; Peter found it possible to be attached to most of the
people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and
gregarious instincts. Even when he heard how the Robinsons had it
practically all, he bore no resentment either against his uncle or the
Robinsons. Such was life. And of course he and Hilary did not make wise
use of money; that they had always been told.

"You'll have to leave Cambridge," Hilary told him. "You haven't enough to
keep you here. I'm sorry, Peter; I'm afraid you'll have to begin and try
to earn a living. But I can't imagine how, can you? Has any paying line
of life ever occurred to you as possible?"

"Never," Peter assured him. "But I've not had time to think it over yet,
of course. I supposed I should be up here for two years more, you see."

At Hilary's "You'll have to leave Cambridge," his face had changed
sharply. Here was tragedy indeed. Bother the Robinsons.... But after
a moment's pause for recovery he answered Hilary lightly enough. Such,
again, was life. A marvellous two terms and a half, and then the familiar
barred gate. It was an old story.

Hilary's thoughts turned to his own situation. They never, to tell the
truth, dwelt very long on anybody else's.

"We," he said, "are destitute--absolutely. It's simply frightful, the
wear and strain of it. Peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is _not_
a good manager. She likes spending, you know--and there's so seldom
anything to spend, poor Peggy. So life is disappointing for her. The
babies, I needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. And they will
bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is
relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere."

"If he was selling any pictures," Peter reflected, "he would tell me," so
he did not enquire. Peter had tact as to his questions. One rather needed
it with Hilary. But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the
moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. Presently Hilary
enlightened him.

"I edit a magazine," he said, and Pete