rm at Harrow, but that did
not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way. It left his mother
perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him.

He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before
him at preparatory school. Easily first in every class he entered, he
was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for
Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable classical
scholarship.

Throughout his career at school he never failed to win any prize he
tried for, and when he left, it was with scholarships that almost
covered the expenses of his time at Cambridge. Moreover, he was head
of his house and a member of the Eleven.

His mother, a gentle and unselfish lady, felt that she could not do
enough to promote the comfort of so brilliant and satisfactory a son.
Hilary's likes and dislikes in the matter of food, Hilary's preference
for silk underwear, Hilary's love of art and music, were all matters of
equal and supreme importance to Mrs Ffolliot, and in every way she
fostered the strain of selfishness that exists even in the best of us.

At the university he did equally well. He took a brilliant degree, and
then travelled for a year or so, devoting himself to the study of
Italian art and architecture; and finally accepted (he never seemed to
try for things like other people) a clerkship in the Foreign Office.

When he was eight and twenty his uncle died, and he inherited Redmarley.

His conduct had always been blameless. He shared the ordinary
pleasures of upper-class young men without committing any of their
follies. He was careful about money, and never got into debt. He
accepted kindnesses as his right, and felt under no obligation to
return them.

He could not be said ever to have worked hard, for all the work he had
hitherto undertaken came so easily to him. He possessed a large circle
of agreeable acquaintances, and no intimate friends.

He met Marjory Grantly in her second season, and for the first time in
his life fell ardently and hopelessly in love.

Now was the chance for the Fairy Blackstick!

But she evidently took no interest in Hilary Ffolliot, for Marjory,
instead of sending him about his business, and perhaps thus rendering
him for a space the most miserable of men, fell in love with him, and
they were married in three months.

The General, it is true, had misgivings, and remarked to Mrs Grantly
that Ffolliot seemed too good t