Miss Ponsonbys enemies for life," she said; "you never spoke to them
once. I warned you that they were the most important people in the
place."

"Oh! the Miss Ponsonbys!" said Harry carelessly, and Robin stood amazed.

CHAPTER III

Robin's rooms, charming as they were, with their wide windows opening
on to tossing sea and the sharp bend of the grey cliffs stretching to
distant horizons, suffered from overcrowding.

His sitting-room, with its dark red wallpaper and several good prints
framed in dark oak--Burne-Jones' "Study for Cupid's Masque," Hunt's
"Hireling Shepherd," and Whistler's "Battersea Bridge" were the
best--might have been delightful had he learned to select; but at the
present stage in his development he hated rejecting anything as long as
it reached a certain standard. His appreciations were wide and
generous, and his knowledge was just now too superficial to permit of
discerning criticism. The room, again, suffered from a rather
effeminate prettiness. There were too many essentially trivial
knick-knacks--some fans, silver ornaments, a charming little ebony
clock, and a generous assortment of gay, elegantly worked cushions.
The books, too, were all in handsome editions--Meredith in green
leather with a gold-worked monogram, Pater in red half-morocco,
Swinburne in light-blue with red and gold tooling--rich and to some
extent unobtrusive, but reiterating unmistakably the first impression
that the room had given, the mark of something superficial.

Robin was there now, dressing for dinner. He often dressed in his
sitting-room, because his books were there. He liked to open a book
for a moment before fitting his studs into his shirt, and how charming
to read a verse of Swinburne before brushing his hair--not so much
because of the Swinburne, but rather because one went down to dinner
with a pleasant feeling of culture and education. To-night he was in a
hurry. People had stayed so late for tea (it was still the day after
his father's arrival), and he had to be at the other end of the town by
half-past seven. What a nuisance going out to dinner was, and how he
wished he wasn't going to-night.

The fact that the dinner promised, in all probability, to afford
something of a situation did not, as was often the case, give him very
much satisfaction. Indeed it was the reverse. The situation was going
to be extremely unpleasant, and there was every likelihood that Robin
would look a fool. Rob