and drank a good deal and ate very little, and was obviously
on very friendly terms with Lord Evelyn and on no terms at all with Mr.
Cheriton. Cheriton looked a good deal at Peter, with very bright and
direct eyes, and flung into the conversation rather curt and spasmodic
utterances in a slightly American accent. He seemed a very decided and
very much alive young man, a little rude, thought Peter, but possibly
that was only his trans-Atlantic way, if, as his voice hinted, he came
from America. Once or twice Peter met the direct and vivid regard fixed
upon him, and nearly was startled into "I beg your pardon," for there
seemed to him an odd element of accusation in the look.

"But it isn't my fault," he told himself reassuringly. "I've not done
anything, I'm sure I haven't. It's just the way he's made, I expect. Or
else people have done him badly once or twice, and he's always thinking
it's going to happen again. Rough luck on him; poor chap."

After dinner they went into what Lord Evelyn called the saloon. "Where
I keep my especial treasures," he remarked to Peter. "You'd like to walk
round and look at some of them, I expect. These bronzes, now--," he
indicated two statuettes on brackets by the door.

Peter looked at them, then swiftly up at Lord Evelyn, who swayed at his
side, his glass screwed into one smiling eye.

Lord Evelyn touched the near statuette with his light, unsteady,
beautifully-ringed hand.

"Rather lovely, isn't she," he said, caressing her. "We found her and the
Actaeon in a dusty hole of a place in a miserable little _calle_ off the
Campo delle Beccarie, kept by a German Jew. Quite a find, the old sinner.
What an extortioner, though! Eh, Margerison? How much has the old
Schneller got out of my pocket? It was your brother who discovered him
for me, young Peter. He took me there, and we found the Diana together.
Like her? Giacomo Treviso, a pupil of Verrocchio's. Heard of him? The
Actaeon's not so good now. Same man, but not so happy."

He turned the Diana about; he posed her for Peter's edification. Peter
looked from her to the Actaeon, from the Actaeon to Lord Evelyn's face. He
opened his lips to say something, and closed them on silence. He looked
past Lord Evelyn to Hilary, who stood in the background, leaning a little
against a chair. It seemed to Peter that there was a certain tensity, a
strain, in his face.

Then Peter met full the bright, hard, vivid gaze of the alert Cheriton.
It had an