a sportsman should think little ornaments matter so much! I mean,
should worry about china, and so on."

"It is hereditary, dear," said Felicity calmly. "One of his ancestors
was a great collector, and the other wasn't--I forget what he was. I
_think_ a friend of James I, or something military of that sort."

"I'm afraid Chetwode's rather a gambler--that's the only thing that
worries me for _you_, dear," said Vera.

"What do you mean by that?" said Felicity.

"Well ... I mean I shouldn't mind my husband attending sales and
bringing home a lot of useless beautiful things.... At Christie's you
know where you are to a certain extent ... but at Newmarket you don't."

"Chetwode," said Felicity, "isn't a gambler in the ordinary sense. He
never plays cards. Little pictures on paste-board fidget him, he says;
he loathes Monte Carlo because it's vulgar, and he dislikes roulette and
bridge. He's only a gambler in the best sense of the word--and that's a
very fine sense!"

"Oh dear, you _are_ so clever, Felicity! What _do_ you mean?"

"Isn't every one worth anything more or less of a gambler? Isn't going
to a dinner-party a risk--that you may be bored? Isn't marriage a
lottery--and all that sort of thing? Chetwode is prepared to take risks.
That's what I admire about him!"

"He certainly stays away a great deal," said Vera.

"Now, you're only pretending to be disagreeable. You don't mean it. He
has just been explaining to me that he hates the sort of things that
amuse _me_,--dances and the opera, and social things. Why, then, should
he go with me? He does sometimes, but I know it's an agonising
sacrifice. What do you think he is going to do to-night? A really rather
dreadful thing."

"_I_ don't know."

"Dine with me at Aunt William's! A sort of family dinner. Aunt William
has asked papa, Sylvia, Savile, and us, and I know just the sort of
thing it will be. She has got some excellent match to take Sylvia to
dinner, a boring married man for _me_, a suitable old widow or married
man's wife for papa, Dolly Clive for Savile (although she isn't out--but
then I suppose HE isn't out either, but she spoils Savile), and probably
Chetwode will take HER in. Fairly horrible, isn't it? And you know the
house. Wax flowers under glass, rep curtains. And the decorations on the
table! A strip of looking-glass, surrounded by smilax! And the dinner!
Twelve courses, port and sherry--all the fashions of 1860, or a little
later, which is w