And all the time the vivid stare of Jim Cheriton was turned like a search-light on Peter’s face, and his odd smile grew and grew.  Cheriton was watching, observing, taking in something new, trying to solve some problem.

At the end of half an hour Lord Evelyn said, “Peter Margerison, you’ve lost some of the religious fervour of your youth.  The deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world—­is that it?  What’s come to you that you’re so tepid about this Siena chalice?  Don’t be tepid, young Peter; it’s the symptom of a ruined soul.”

He polished his glass, screwed it into his left eye, and looked down on Peter with his whimsical, kindly scrutiny.  Peter did not return the look; he stood with bent head, looking vaguely down at the Sienese chalice.  That too was one of Hilary’s finds.  Hilary it seemed, had approved its seller in an article in the Gem.

“Damme,” said Lord Evelyn suddenly, with unusual explosiveness, “if I didn’t like you better when you were fifteen!  Now, you blase and soulless generation, I suppose you want to play bridge.  Do you play as badly as ever, Peter?  A remarkable player you were, I remember—­quite remarkable.  Denis always told you so.  Now Cheriton will tell you so, because he’s rude.”

Bridge was a relief to Peter, though he was still a rather remarkable player.  He played with Cheriton, who was not rude, because he was absolutely silent.  It was an absurd game.  Cheriton was a brilliant player, even when he was only giving half his mind to it, as he seemingly was to-night.  Lord Evelyn had been a brilliant player once, and was now brilliant with alternations of eccentricity; he talked most of the time, making the game the centre of his remarks, from which he struck out along innumerable paths of irrelevancy.  The Margerisons too were irrelevant; Hilary thought bridge a bore, and Peter, who thought nothing a bore, was always a little alarmed by anything so grown-up.  But to-night he didn’t much mind what he did, so long as he stopped looking at Lord Evelyn’s things.  Peter only wanted to get away; he was ashamed and perplexed and sorry and angry, and stabbed through with pity.  He wanted to get out of Lord Evelyn’s house, out of the range of his kindly, whimsical smile and Cheriton’s curious hostile stare; he wanted to be alone with Hilary, and to understand.

The irony of Cheriton’s look increased during bridge; it was certainly justified by the abstraction of Peter’s play.

Lord Evelyn laughed at him.  “You need Denis to keep you in order, young Peter.  Lord, how frightened you used to be when Denis was stern.  Smiled and pretended you weren’t, but I knew....”  He chuckled at the painted ceiling.  “Knew a man at Oxford, Peter ... well, never mind that story now, you’re too young for it....  Anyhow I make it no trumps.”