feast they will never have.

After dinner we smoked a very fine cigar in the imaginary conservatory
which Holder has just run up, and I have rarely, if ever, heard a better
description of men smoking cigars in a conservatory. Next, Holder played me
a fast game of billiards. He allowed me to choose my own table, and I
picked the most expensive in the catalogue. Dickie marked for us. Then he
went to bed. I heard his father whisper a most convincing description of
eiderdowns and real wool blankets when he kissed him. He is only a very
little boy--big blue eyes, you know, like a girl's; they watered a little.
Excitement....

It was a clear moonlit night with a touch of frost in the air, so Mrs.
Holder rang for the visionary footman, a good-looking, most willing,
sensible man, according to Holder's quick portrait of him, who piled up
some great logs on a bank of coals of a positively fantastic size, and we
gathered round to enjoy a run in the brand-new, latest model Rolls-Royce
which is one of the special things which Holder will never possess in this
world. Ah, but she was a queen of cars, and the best of cars always
run better at night. I wonder why. So smoothly silky, so dreamily
sweet-running, a pouring of cream! I wish I could convey to you the satin
sound of her transmission, the low golden purr of her gears, the fanning
of her velvet wings--wheels, that is. I would sooner ride in that verbal
car of Holder's than walk round the real backyard that is my own, unless
I fall behind with the rent, as I begin to fear I shall....

Down the dreamy moon-drenched highways, across the magic silver-flecked
moors, we climbed on the wings of the peregrine to the keen, cold uplands,
soared awhile, then dropped to the warm and sheltered valley and so home
again. We felt the radiator, Holder and I, and it was quite cool. _She_
will never boil on a stiff hill. Mrs. Holder was glowing from her ride; for
an instant she looked pink and pretty; she had lost that wistful pinched
look.

I went inside for a phrase or so of Holder's admirable idea of what cherry
brandy should be. We chatted for a little about the estate that he will
never purchase, and then I left, having promised to go round there
to-morrow for a little shooting. It will be hot work among the pheasants if
Holder has not lost his voice.

He and his wife came down the drive to the entrance-gates with me.

"Good-night," they said; "we're glad you've enjoyed yourself."

Hol