The Bellairs’ had that immensely preferable sort of tea which takes place round a table, and has jam and knives. They didn’t have this at the Deanery, because people do drop in so at Deaneries, and there mightn’t be enough places laid, besides, drawing-room tea is politer to canons and their wives. So that alone would have been a reason why Daphne and Eddy liked tea with the Bellairs’. Also, the Bellairs’ _en famille_ were a delightful and jolly party. Colonel Bellairs was hospitable, genial, and entertaining; Mrs. Bellairs was most wonderfully kind, and rather like Molly on a sobered, motherly, and considerably filled-out scale. They were less enlightened than at the Deanery, but quite prepared to admit that the Prayer Book ought to be revised, if the Dean thought so, though for them, personally, it was good enough as it stood. There were few people so kind-hearted, so genuinely courteous and well-bred. Colonel Bellairs, though a little sorry for the Dean because Eddy didn’t seem to be settling down steadily into a sensible profession--(in his own case the “What to do with our boys” problem had always been very simple)--was fond of his friend’s son, and very kind to him, and thought him a nice, attractive lad, even if he hadn’t yet found himself. He and his wife both hoped that Eddy would make this discovery before long, for a reason they had. After tea Claude and Molly started back with the Olivers, to break the parting for Diddums. Eddy wanted to tell Molly about his prospects, and for her to tell him how interesting they were (Molly was always so delightfully interested in anything one told her), so he and she walked on ahead down the lane, in the pale light of the Christmas moon, that rose soon after tea. (It was a year when this occurred). “I expect,” he said, “you think it’s fairly feeble to have begun a thing and be dropping it so soon. But I suppose one has to try round a little, to find out what one’s job really is.” “Why, of course. It would be absurd to stick on if it isn’t really what you like to do.” “I did like it, too. Only I found I didn’t want to give it quite all my time and interest. I can’t be that sort of thorough, one-job man. The men there are. Traherne, now--I wish you knew him; he’s splendid. He simply throws himself into it body and soul, and says no to everything else. I can’t. I don’t think I even want to. Life’s too many-sided for that, it seems to me, and one wants to have it all--or lots of it, anyhow. The consequence was that I was chucked out. Finch told me I was to cut off those other things, or get out. So I got out. I quite see his point of view, and that he was right in a way; but I couldn’t do it. He wanted me to see less of my friends, for one thing; thought they got in the way of work, which perhaps they may have sometimes; also he didn’t much approve of all of them. That’s so funny. Why shouldn’t one be friends with anyone one can, even if their point of view isn’t altogether one’s own?”