Hillier, coming up to them, said courteously, “This has been extremely good of you, Mrs. Le Moine. We have all had a great treat. But you really mustn’t waste more of your valuable time on our uncultivated ears. We’re not worth it, I’m afraid.” Eileen looked at him with a glint of amusement in the gloomy blue shadowiness of her eyes. “I won’t come,” she said, “unless you want me to, of course.” Hillier protested. “It’s delightful for us, naturally--far more than we deserve. It was your time I was thinking of.” “That will be all right. I’ll come, then, for half an hour, next Monday.” She turned to Eddy. “Will you come to lunch with us--Miss Hogan and me, you know--next Sunday? Arnold Denison’s coming, and Karl Lovinski, the violinist, and two or three other people. 3, Campden Hill Road, at 1.30.” “Thanks; I should like to.” Datcherd came up from the back of the room where he had been talking to Traherne, who had come in lately. They said goodbye, and the club took to billiards. “Is Mr. Datcherd coming, too, next Monday?” Hillier inquired gloomily of Eddy. “Oh, I expect so. I suppose it’s less of a bore for Mrs. Le Moine not to have to come all that way alone. Besides, he’s awfully interested in it all.” “A first-class man,” said Traherne, who was an enthusiast, and had found in Datcherd another Socialist, though not a Church one. Eddy and the curates walked back together later in the evening. Eddy felt vaguely jarred by Hillier to-night; probably because Hillier was, in his mind, opposing something, and that was the one thing that annoyed Eddy. Hillier was, he felt, opposing these delightful people who had provided the club with such a glorious evening, and were going to do so again next Monday; these brilliant people, who spilt their genius so lavishly before the poor and ignorant; these charming, friendly people, who had asked Eddy to lunch next Sunday. What Hillier said was, “Shall you get Wilkes to take your class again on Sunday afternoon, Oliver?” “Yes, I suppose so. He doesn’t mind, does he? I believe he really takes it a lot better than I do.” Hillier believed so, too, and made no comment. Traherne laughed. “Wilkes! Oh, he means well, no doubt. But I wouldn’t turn up on Sunday afternoon if I was going to be taught by Wilkes. What an ass you are, Oliver, going to lunch parties on Sundays.” With Traherne, work came first, and everything else, especially anything social, an immense number of lengths behind. With Eddy a number of things ran neck to neck all the time. He wouldn’t, Traherne thought, a trifle contemptuously, ever accomplish much in any sphere of life at that rate. He said to the vicar that night, “Oliver’s being caught in the toils of Society, I fear. For such a keen person, he’s oddly slack about sticking to his job when anything else turns up.”