gs are too easy for him all round.
He's handsome, and strong, and clever, and charming, and there's an
uncle in the background who plays fairy godfather and plans out his life
ahead, so that he has nothing to worry about like other young men. He's
not an old uncle really: he's almost young, but he had an accident as a
boy which laid him up for quite a spell, and turned him into a shy
recluse. Then when at last he recovered, he was lame, so of course he
was cut off from active life, and I guess from what I've heard that he's
sensitive about it. Anyway, he lives all alone, and has adopted Stanor
as a kind of son, and fusses over him like a hen with one chick--a bit
more than the young man appreciates, I fancy."

"How fuss? In what way?"

"Oh! Ambitious, don't you know," Miss Ward explained vaguely. "All the
things he ever wanted to be and to do, and couldn't, he is determined
that Stanor shall do for him. He is clever, and studious, and serious,
so he is set on it that the poor boy should be a book-worm, too, and put
study before everything else, and have serious ideas on--er--er--the
responsibility of property." Honor frowned at the tips of her small
satin shoes. "Drains, you know, and cottages, and overcrowding the
poor. Of course that kind of thing comes easy enough when you are
thirty-five and lame, but poor Stanor is only twenty-four, and as
handsome as paint. It's difficult to be serious-minded at twenty-four,
and patient with people who fuss!"

Pixie knitted her brows with an air of perturbation.

"But I hope he is nice to his uncle. It would be so hard to be hurt in
your body and hurt in your mind at the same time. It's bad enough for
him, poor creature, to have to sit still and live his life through
another. His heart is not crippled, nor his mind, nor his will, and
fancy, me dear, going on being patient, day after day, year after year,
while your body held you back, and you longed, and couldn't, and felt
the spirit to move a mountain, and were obliged to lie still on a sofa!"
Pixie bounced in a characteristic fashion on her own sofa corner, and
whisked a minute pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. "Excuse me, me dear,
will you change the conversation? I was always soft-hearted, but red
eyes at a dinner party are not _a la mode_. ... Let's talk about
pickles!--"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

PIXIE IS DULL.

Geoffrey Hilliard and his two guests entered the drawing-room, and
Pixie's eyes turned to gree