"You have no new potatoes, dear. Charles, give Mr. Stone some new
potatoes."

By the almost vindictive expression on Stephen's face she saw, however,
that her failure had decided him to resume command of the situation.
"Talking of brotherhood, sir," he said dryly, "would you go so far as to
say that a new potato is the brother of a bean?"

Mr. Stone, on whose plate these two vegetables reposed, looked almost
painfully confused.

"I do not perceive," he stammered, "any difference between them."

"It's true," said Stephen; "the same pale spirit can be extracted from
them both."

Mr. Stone looked up at him.

"You laugh at me," he said. "I cannot help it; but you must not laugh at
life--that is blasphemy."

Before the piercing wistfulness of that sudden gaze Stephen was abashed.
Cecilia saw him bite his lower lip.

"We're talking too much," he said; "we really must let your father eat!"
And the rest of the dinner was achieved in silence.

When Mr. Stone, refusing to be accompanied, had taken his departure, and
Thyme had gone to bed, Stephen withdrew to his study. This room, which
had a different air from any other portion of the house, was sacred to
his private life. Here, in specially designed compartments, he kept
his golf clubs, pipes, and papers. Nothing was touched by anyone except
himself, and twice a week by one particular housemaid. Here was no bust
of Socrates, no books in deerskin bindings, but a bookcase filled with
treatises on law, Blue Books, reviews, and the novels of Sir Walter
Scott; two black oak cabinets stood side by side against the wall filled
with small drawers. When these cabinets were opened and the drawers
drawn forward there emerged a scent of metal polish. If the green-baize
covers of the drawers were lifted, there were seen coins, carefully
arranged with labels--as one may see plants growing in rows, each with
its little name tied on. To these tidy rows of shining metal discs
Stephen turned in moments when his spirit was fatigued. To add to them,
touch them, read their names, gave him the sweet, secret feeling which
comes to a man who rubs one hand against the other. Like a dram-drinker,
Stephen drank--in little doses--of the feeling these coins gave him.
They were his creative work, his history of the world. To them he
gave that side of him which refused to find its full expression in
summarising law, playing golf, or reading the reviews; that side of a
man which aches, he knows