ncient palaces.

Peter presently said, "But ..." and there stopped. What could he say,
beyond "but?"

Hilary answered him sharply, "Well?" and then, after another pause,
Peter pulled himself together, gave up trying to thread the maze of his
perplexity, and said soberly, "I beg your pardon, Hilary. I'm an ass."

Hilary let out his breath sharply, and resumed his cigar.

"It's possible, of course," he said, more quietly, "that you may be right
and I wrong about the things. That's another question altogether. I may
be a fool: I only resent being called a knave. _Really_, you know!"

"I never meant that," Peter hopelessly began to explain. And, indeed, now
that Hilary disclaimed it, it did seem a far too abominable thing that he
had implied. He had hurt Hilary; he deserved to be kicked. His anger with
himself rose. To hurt anyone was atrocious; to hurt Hilary unforgivable.
He would have done a great deal now to make amends.

He stammered over it. "I did think, I'm afraid, that you and Cheriton
were doing it to make him happy or something. I'm awfully sorry; I was
an ass; I ought to have known. But it never occurred to me that you
didn't kn--that you had a different opinion of the things. I say,
Hilary--Cheriton knows! I saw him know. He knew, and he was wondering
what I was going to say."

"Knew, knew, knew!" Hilary nervously exploded. "There you go again.
You're intolerable, Peter, really. All the spoiling you've had has gone
to your head."

"I beg your pardon," said Peter again. "I meant, Cheriton agreed with me,
I'm sure.... But, Hilary--those statuettes--you can't really.... They're
mid-Victorian, and positively offensive!" His voice rose shrilly. They
had been so horrible, Diana and Actaeon. He couldn't forget them, in their
podgy sentimentality. "And--and that chalice ..." he shuddered over
it--"and--"

"That'll do, thanks," Hilary broke in. "You can say at once that you
disagree with me about everything I admire, and leave it there. But, if
I may ask you, don't say so to Lord Evelyn, if you can resist the
temptation to show me up before him. It will only bother and disturb him,
whichever of us he ends by agreeing with. He's shown that he trusts my
taste more or less, by giving me his paper to edit, and I should think
we might leave it at that."

"Yes, the paper"--Peter was reminded of it, and it became a distracting
puzzle. Hilary thought Diana and Actaeon and the Siena chalice good
things--and Hilary ed