For some reason there has never been any great cordiality between the cousins. Perhaps Culroyd is a _little_ bit consequential in the way that he insists on his own dignity--a sort of instinctive attitude of self-preservation, as though he realized that he owes everything to an accident of sex and that, if Brackenbury and I changed places, he would have to change places with Will... And Will may very well have been galled by the light-hearted way in which Hilda could not get on without him one day and got on quite comfortably without him the next. No one likes ingratitude, though it was on the tip of my tongue to say that he need not grudge his leavings to poor Culroyd. It was not so easy to find a free night, as the young people seemed to have made arrangements for days ahead, and in the end I told Will to leave them to their whispering and silliness and talk to _me_. "Why you ever invited her I don't know," he grumbled; and I could see that the strain of playing cavalier for so long was telling on him. "It was an opportunity for doing her a little kindness," I said. "And is she going to marry Culroyd?," he asked, "or is she simply playing with him until she finds something _better_ worth her while?" "Isn't it rather a question whether Culroyd will marry _her_?," I suggested. "After all, she doesn't _bring_ very much... They seem to get on quite well together." "I haven't seen them," said Will. "It would be amusing to watch..." When they all met, I can't say that it was very amusing for _me_. Will can be rather a tease when he likes, but I think it a pity to go on with that sort of thing if other people haven't enough humour to take it in good part. Culroyd and Hilda were so tremendously in earnest that they couldn't bear to be chaffed; and, the stiffer they became, the more irresistible they were to Will. I intervened once or twice, when I thought Culroyd was losing his temper, but the situation seemed to get suddenly out of hand; there was something _very_ like a scene. "If you don't know how to behave," said Culroyd--very rudely, I thought, "do hire some one to teach you. Your manners would disgrace a privates' canteen." "Would they? I'm afraid I'm not a good judge," said Will. It was neat; but, though I'm his mother, I feel he ought not to have said it. I expect you know that Culroyd was still at Eton when the war broke out. Brackenbury positively forbade him to take a commission before he was eighteen, so Culroyd ran away and enlisted. It was in the regular army, you understand, and they had every kind of difficulty in getting him out. He joined the Coldstream afterwards, but for a time he _was_ a private... "A better judge of draft-dodgers, perhaps," said Culroyd.