“Don’t!” said Agnes hastily. “Don’t touch the poor fellow’s things.” The sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. She had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs. “Agnes—before he arrives—you ought never to have left me and gone to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald—” Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn came—he had had to wait—he had yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didn’t matter. And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen’s virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat had no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating into his instep. “Rickie,” cried the lady, “are you aware that you haven’t congratulated me on my engagement?” Rickie laughed nervously, and said, “Why no! No more I have.” “Say something pretty, then.” “I hope you’ll be very happy,” he mumbled. “But I don’t know anything about marriage.” “Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn’t he just the same? But you do know something about Gerald, so don’t be so chilly and cautious. I’ve just realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school together. Did you come much across him?” “Very little,” he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and began to muddle with the coffee. “But he was in the same house. Surely that’s a house group?” “He was a prefect.” He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell to the bottom. “Wasn’t he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn’t he knock any boy or master down?” “Yes.” “If he had wanted to,” said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some time. “If he had wanted to,” echoed Rickie. “I do hope, Agnes, you’ll be most awfully happy. I don’t know anything about the army, but I should think it must be most awfully interesting.” Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly. “Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,—the profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death—death, rather than dishonour.”