In the drawing-room things went well enough, even though there was an unexplainable chill in the atmosphere. Cousin Isabel was as kind and gentle and vague as ever; Judith was there, very handsome and prosperous, not overenthusiastic in welcome, rather inclined to patronise a very young man, quite two months younger than a married lady of position and importance. Nevertheless, there was something unregenerate about her eye, that, taken in connection with the two subalterns in whose car she had come to call at Mount Music, suggested that Bill Kirby might at times find life stirring. John, recently ordained, now a very decorative curate in a London church, was there, even more patronising than Judith, and undecided whether to regard Larry with suspicion, as a brand still smouldering from the fires of secularist France, or affectionately, as a member of what, in one of his earlier sermons, he had described as "Our ancient Mother Church, dear Peopul! Beloved, but in some matters, that I will presently indicate to you, mistaken!" The subalterns were remote, not approving of the style of Larry's tie (which he had bought in Paris, and differed from theirs) and Cousin Dick was not there. "You must go and see him, dear Larry," says Cousin Isabel, "he's in the study." "And Christian? Though, of course, I met her this morning--" says Larry. Christian, poor child, went out for a little walk with the dogs just now. Christian (poor child) had felt that wretched business this morning so terribly. The wretched business was gone into, thoroughly and exhaustively, and yet Larry felt that across one corner of it there was a fold of curtain drawn. He said he would go and see Cousin Dick. There was always a chance that Christian, also, might be in the study. The axiom that "If a man want a thing he _mus'_ have it," should, in Larry's case, have the corollary that he must have it at once. The Major was standing by the chimney piece in the study, warming one foot after the other at the fire that Evans had just replenished. Larry met the scald-crow at the door, and Evans passed him "as if," thought Larry, disgustedly, "he had been seeing me every day for a year! The old beast always hated me!" Larry did not like being hated.