At the same time he was a little nervous about it all. There seemed to him such an immense difference between the way of living which was natural to himself, and that which Caroline took for granted, even in this modest home of theirs. All the beautiful furnishing and appointments, as perfect on their smaller scale as those to be found at the Abbey, he took pleasure in as the right setting for Caroline, and as giving her pleasure; but they said nothing to him apart from her, and he found them even a little irksome. They marked the difference between him and her, and, especially in the light of her careful and loving preparations, between him and her father. Grafton was not a man to whom creature comforts were all in all. He could have roughed it if necessary, even at his age, as well as Maurice himself. But it seemed to Maurice that he needed as much attention and cosseting as a woman. His bedroom was arranged so that he should miss nothing of what he was accustomed to--his personal belongings brought down from the Abbey, his bedside table furnished with carefully shaded light, books, cigarettes, matches, ash-tray. His own servant was to be in waiting for him when he came, to deal with his clothes, and again in the morning, when he was to have his tea at the early hour he affected. There were the soaps and salts he liked in the bathroom, and the bath sheet was to be warmed and sent up at exactly the right time. Meals were a subject of earnest discussion between Caroline and her maid, and immense care was to be taken in preparing them. He had stocked their tiny cellar himself, and old Jarvis was called in to decide upon the question of wines and _liqueurs_, Maurice being entirely ignorant on such subjects. And Jarvis was to wait at table. The maid, though a treasure, could not do justice to the occasion. In as far as all this meant that Caroline was displaying the charming desire of a young housewife to acquit herself well, and to do honour to one whom she loved, he could sympathise with her. But he did not see that it meant that almost entirely, and put a good deal of it down to the exigencies of a rich man, which Caroline had rather wasted herself hitherto in satisfying. He was in process of adjusting himself all round. He would not have believed beforehand that so many of the ways of a large house could have been imported into a small one, run with one servant, as were surrounding him in Stone Cottage. They would not always live exactly as they were going to live during the few days of Grafton's visit But the life to which they were already settling down was far more elaborate than any he had ever lived before, even in Worthing's bachelor establishment, which was run on more elaborate lines than those of his father's vicarage.