Sir Edmund could not say that Billy was a fool or a snob, because Billy did nothing but lead a perfectly useless life as expensively as possible; and he did the same himself. He could not even say that Billy lived among fools and snobs, because many of Billy's friends were his own friends too. He could not say that Billy had been a coward because he had not volunteered to fight in the Boer war, because Sir Edmund had not volunteered himself. He could not say that Billy employed the wrong tailor; it would show only gross ignorance or temper to say so. But just the things in which he felt himself superior, utterly different in fact from Billy, were the stupid, priggish things that no one boasts of. He read a good deal; he thought a good deal; he knew he might have had a future, and the bitterness of his heart lay in the fact that at fifteen years later in life than Billy he was still so completely a slave to all that Billy loved. Every detail of their lives seemed to add to the irritation. It was only the day he left London that he had discovered that Billy's new motor was from the same maker as his own; in fact, except in colour, the motors were twins. This was the latest, and not even the least, cause of annoyance. For it betrayed what he was always trying to conceal from himself, that there appeared to be an actual rivalry between him and Billy, a petty, social, silly rivalry. Billy, of simpler make, a fresher, younger, more contented animal, thought little of all this, and was irritated by Sir Edmund's assumption of superiority.