fellow of my age that would take things so
quietly. Never touching a scrap without leave, when lots like me come
home to late dinner every night."

"Elsa says it's only middle-class people who let children dine late,"
said Vic, primly, "_I_ shan't come down to dinner till I'm _out_."

Geoffrey burst out laughing.

"Rubbish!" he said. "Elsa finds reasons for everything that suits her.
Here, Vicky, take your piece."

Vicky was not partial to anchovy toasts, but to-night she was so anxious
to keep Geoff in a good humour, that she would have eaten anything he
chose to give her, and pretended to like it. So she accepted her share,
and Geoff munched his in silence.

He was a well-made, manly looking boy, not tall for his years, which
were fourteen, but in such good proportion as to give promise of
growing into a strong and vigorous man. His face was intended by nature
to be a very pleasing one. The features were all good; there was
nobility in the broad forehead, and candour in the bright dark eyes,
and--sometimes--sweetness in the mouth. But this "sometimes" had for
long been becoming of less and less frequent occurrence. A querulous,
half-sulky expression had invaded the whole face: its curves and lines
were hardening as those of no young face should harden; the very
carriage of the boy was losing its bright upright fearlessness--his
shoulders were learning to bend, his head to slouch forward. One needed
but to glance at him to see that Geoffrey Tudor was fast becoming that
most disagreeable of social characters, a grumbler! And with grumbling
unrepressed, and indulged in, come worse things, for it has its root in
that true "root of all evil," selfishness.

As the last crumbs of the anchovy toasts disappeared, Geoff glanced
round him.

"I say, Vic," he began, "is there any water on the sideboard? Those
things are awfully salt. But I don't know that I'm exactly thirsty,
either. I know what I'd like--a glass of claret, and I don't see why I
shouldn't have it, either. At my age it's really too absurd that----"

"What are you talking about, Geoff?" said Elsa's voice in the doorway.
"Mamma wants you to come up to the drawing-room for a little. What is it
that is too absurd at your age?"

"Nothing in particular--or rather everything," said Geoff, with a slight
tone of defiance. There was something in Elsa's rather too superior, too
elder-sisterly way of speaking that, as he would have expressed it, "set
him up." "I wa