“Oh, poor, poor fellow!” said Mrs. Elliot with a remorse that was sincere, though her congratulations would not have been. “I am so very sorry.” But Maud turned to Rickie. “Mr. Elliot, you might know. Tell me. What is wrong with Stewart’s philosophy? What ought he to put in, or to alter, so as to succeed?” Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. “I don’t know,” said Rickie sadly. They were none of them so clever, after all. “Hegel,” she continued vindictively. “They say he’s read too much Hegel. But they never tell him what to read instead. Their own stuffy books, I suppose. Look here—no, that’s the ‘Windsor.’” After a little groping she produced a copy of “Mind,” and handed it round as if it was a geological specimen. “Inside that there’s a paragraph written about something Stewart’s written about before, and there it says he’s read too much Hegel, and it seems now that that’s been the trouble all along.” Her voice trembled. “I call it most unfair, and the fellowship’s gone to a man who has counted the petals on an anemone.” Rickie had no inclination to smile. “I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead.” “I don’t wish it!” “You say that,” she continued hotly, “and then you never come to see him, though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation.” “If it comes to that, Miss Ansell,” retorted Rickie, in the laughing tones that one adopts on such occasions, “Stewart won’t come to me, though he _has_ had an invitation.” “Yes,” chimed in Agnes, “we ask Mr. Ansell again and again, and he will have none of us.” Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. “My brother is a very peculiar person, and we ladies can’t understand him. But I know one thing, and that’s that he has a reason all round for what he does. Look here, I must be getting on. Waiter! Wai-ai-aiter! Bill, please. Separately, of course. Call the Army and Navy cheap! I know better!” “How does the drapery department compare?” said Agnes sweetly. The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and left them. Rickie was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. “Appalling person!” she gasped. “It was naughty of me, but I couldn’t help it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man! To fail in life completely, and then to be thrown back on a family like that!” “Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her case, something emerges.” She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, “Do let us make one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston.” “No.” “What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were always talking about him.” “Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the cubicles.”