ho had been a gentle and
amused boy and had reminded him of Sylvia Hope, lacking her beauty, but
with a funny touch of her charm. Peter had loved the things he loved,
too--the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through
a recklessly extravagant life. Peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his
first visit to Astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of
being in Urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a
Bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old Japan May
flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "New Canton, 1750."

"Lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "Lake the sort
of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and
screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on Peter with whimsical
interest. Little Peter had said shyly that he did.

"Prefer chaney to cricket?" asked Urquhart's uncle, with his agreeable
laugh that was too attractive to be described as a titter, a name that
its high, light quality might have suggested. But to that Peter said
"No." He had been asked to Astleys for the cricket week; he was going to
play for Urquhart's team. Not that he was any good; but to scrape through
without disgrace (of course he didn't) was at the moment the goal of
life.

Lord Evelyn had seemed disappointed. "If I could get you away from
Denis," he said, "I'll be bound cricket wouldn't be in the 'also rans.'"

And at that moment Denis had sauntered up, and Peter's worshipping regard
had turned from Lord Evelyn's rose bowl to his nephew, and it was Bow
china that was not among the also rans. At that too Lord Evelyn had
laughed, with his queer, closed mirth.

"Keep that till you fall in love," he had inwardly admonished Peter's
back as the two walked away together. "I daresay she won't deserve it any
better--but that's a law of nature, and this is sheer squandering. My
word, how that boy does lake things--and people!" After all, it was
hardly for any Urquhart to condemn squandering.

That was Lord Evelyn, as he lived in Peter's memory--a generous,
whimsical, pleasant crank, touched with his nephew's glamour of charm.

When Peter said, "I rather love him, don't you," Hilary replied, "He's a
fearful old spendthrift."

Peter demurred at the old. It jarred with one's conceptions of Lord
Evelyn. "I don't suppose he's much over fifty," he surmised.

"No, I daresay," Hilary indifferently admitted. "He's gone the pac