"That, Uncle, was another small affair." "Then whose were the trousers?" persisted Haversham. "They belonged to a Junior Prior," said miserable Peter. "What was the protest this time?" "Equality of treatment under the law," suggested Marbury. "But you're making Peter uncomfortable. He doesn't like to remember that he was once a man of ideas." Haversham looked meditatively at Peter: "It must be splendid to believe so thoroughly in an idea that you are ready to remove the trousers of a Junior Prior." "I was drunk," said Peter bluntly. "Does that also explain the Lord Chamberlain?" asked Haversham, beginning to be interested. "No," said Peter. "Then I was only a fool." "I don't believe a word of it." Lord Haversham turned to Marbury: "Why does he say these things?" "Peter is a bad case, Uncle. He runs all his ideas to death, and sickens at sight of the corpse. I read Peter two years ago. He was born young." "I'm afraid he'll very soon exhaust Highbury," said Lord Haversham, smiling. "No," blurted Peter. "We haven't any ideas," said Haversham quaintly. "We grow on the soil here, labourers and landlords. Tony," he went on, putting his hand affectionately on Marbury's arm, "is almost perfectly the Radical's notion of a stupid squire. You never think, do you, Tony? You're just choked full of prejudices you can't explain. I'm ashamed of you, Tony. You remind me so perfectly of the sort of fool I was myself thirty years ago." Lord Haversham looked at his nephew. There was a beautiful tenderness in his address. Almost as he spoke, an expression of great pain came into his eyes. "I must leave you now," he said. "We will talk again." He quietly slipped from the room, and the conversation was broken up. Peter, in the later solitude of his room, sat meditating at length upon his evening. He could not yet define what he liked in Marbury's friends, but he felt his personal need of it. He lacked the frank nature and ease, the lightness and dexterity of these people. He trod too heavily, delivering his sentiments with a weight which was out of keeping. He felt he must get out of the habit--a habit which did not express or become him--of taking too seriously the frequent appeal for his views on this or that. What, after all, were these views that had always mattered so much? He saw his late companions at dinner as merry figures seated about a pool, idly throwing in pebbles to keep the water agreeably astir. Conversation, it seemed, was not something to be captured and led. It was an agreeable adventure in which the universe was sociably explored. The final word, which Peter so frequently was tempted to deliver, should never be spoken, for, after the final word, what more could decently be said? XXVII The next morning Peter was early in the breakfast room. Only Lady Mary was there. She was looking for weather at the window. "Let me get you some breakfast," said Peter, after they had greeted.