If he could show off Cloom without a qualm, however, it was not the same when it came to displaying his family, and never had he been so thankful for Vassie's beauty as when he saw Killigrew's notice of it. And how that beauty glowed for Killigrew! Even a brother's eyes could not but admire. Phoebe sat unnoticed, her charm swamped in that effulgence. Annie's querulous remarks faded through sheer pride into silence. The Parson, a welcome addition, arrived for supper; greasy Tonkin, inevitable though not so greatly a source of pleasure, drove over from Penzance and sat absorbing Vassie, so to speak, at every pore. Supper was going off well, thought Ishmael, as he watched Killigrew eat and laugh, and listened to his talk that could not have been more animated--so reflected Ishmael in his relief--if Vassie had been a duchess. Under the brightness the tension, so common to that room that it had become part of it, evaporated, and yet what, after all, was it that achieved this miracle? Nothing in the world but ordinary social intercourse between young and gay people who met as equals, intercourse such as poor Ishmael had never known under his own roof before.... And they all made a fuss of him: John-James actually said something approving, if difficult to follow, about his farming; Vassie beamed on him not only for his friend's sake; the Parson drew him out--he felt himself a host, and responded to the sensation. Killigrew was just drawing upon the tablecloth, unreproved of Annie, a sketch of a fashionable Parisian lady for Vassie's instruction when the door opened to admit of Tom, a very rare visitor at Cloom nowadays. He was in sleek black broadcloth and looked almost as ecclesiastical as Tonkin, and much more so than Boase. Tom wore a handsome white cravat beneath his narrow, clean-shaved chin, which was decorated on either side with whiskers whose fiery hue made Killigrew's seem but tawny. Tom wore also a curious smile on his thin lips, but Ishmael was forced to admit, as he watched him shake hands quietly with Killigrew, that this dreaded and disliked brother had given the most unexceptional greeting of any of his family. Tom sat down, but refused food. He had only come out to see his mother, and because it was Ishmael's birthday, or so he said. "Is anything the matter, Tom?" asked Annie artlessly. "No, what should there be?" demanded Tom in a slightly contemptuous fashion. "Can't I want to see you without that? Don't give me away before the visitor, especially as Ishmael's such an attentive son." Annie began to sniff, and Vassie bade him, in an angry undertone, be quiet. Tom obeyed, but it was an odd quietness as of something waiting its time. Conversation drooped as though a blight had fallen upon it, and once or twice Tom might have been observed to glance towards the window. "I'll have a drink if I won't eat," he declared at last. "I must drink the young un's health on an occasion like this, after all. Here, mother, fill up."