"So this is the way she treats you," said Brian, looking round at the boy with a smile. "Fifty pounds at one fell swoop! Why, ye gods! it'd keep me for a year. Not that I envy you--envy isn't in my nature--only it's a queer, topsy-turvy world when one man, who doesn't mean to do anything in particular, has more than he wants, and another, who wants to set the world ringing, can scarcely get a crust. There, that's sheer green envy, isn't it? But what _are_ you going to do? Or have you made up your mind to live at ease and do nothing?" "Well, in a couple of days I'm going abroad with my aunt--for three years, I believe. We're going to travel about." Brian Carlaw's face grew grave, and, without making any reply, he sat for some time almost in moody silence. Poor Comethup began to feel guilty; drew a mental picture, as he was in the habit of doing, of himself travelling in state and luxury through all the fair places of the earth, while this clever cousin, who was bound to become a great man and who craved only fifty pounds for a whole year, struggled along, in hungry fashion, alone in London. He counted himself the usurper; wondered, in all modesty, what his aunt could have found in him to like so much better than this brilliant youth, who would surely some day shed glory on her name. In a cumbrous, boyish, ineffectual way, he strove to think how he might help this cousin, who was himself so helpless. The cabman knew his London, and drove them to a place noted for its cookery and its cellar. Brian quite naturally led the way, and they found a table in a corner and seated themselves. "Perhaps you'd better leave the ordering of things to me," he said to Comethup; and the boy willingly did so. At the finish of the meal, when Brian had lighted a cigarette, he leaned across the table to Comethup and spoke confidentially. The eyes that Comethup thought were always so beautiful looked with the friendliest, frankest expression into those of the boy, and his voice had in it that soft ring of tenderness which made it almost like the voice--except that it was deeper and stronger--of a woman. "Dear old chap," he began, "I talked like a blackguard to you just now; you're a dear, fine fellow, and I had no right--no earthly right--to envy you your good luck. We've always been good friends ever since we were little fellows, and we sha'n't be the worse friends because one is rich and the other poor. You and I don't count friendship in that way, do we?" For answer Comethup, unwilling to trust his voice, stretched his hand across the table; it was immediately gripped by the hand of the other.