He grew very plaintive over it.  Peter really did not wonder.

Peter’s subconscious mind registered a dim impression that this was defensive talk, to fill the silence.  Hilary was a nervous person, easily agitated.  Probably the evening had agitated him.  But he was no good at defence.  His complaint of Jim Cheriton broke weakly on an unsteady laugh.  Peter nodded assent, and looked up the street of dim water, his chin propped in his hands, and thought how extraordinarily pleasant was the red light that slanted across the dark water from green doors ajar in steep house-walls.

Hilary tried to light a cigar, and flung broken matches into spluttering darkness.  At last he succeeded; and then, when he had smoked in silence for two minutes, he turned abruptly on Peter and said, “Well?”

Peter, dreamily turning towards him, felt the nervous challenge of his tone, and read it in his pale, tired face.

Peter pulled himself together and collected his thoughts.  After all, one might as well know.

“Oh, well ... what?  Yes, what about those ghastly statuettes, and all the rest of them?  Why, when, how ... and what on earth for?”

Hilary, after a moment of silence, said, with a rather elaborate carelessness, “I saw you didn’t like them.”

At that Peter started a little, and the dreaminess of the night fell away from him.

“You saw ... oh.”  For a moment he couldn’t think of anything else to say.  Then he laughed a little.  “Why, yes, I imagine you did....  But what’s the object of it all?  Have you and Cheriton (by the way, why does he glare at us both so?) come to the conclusion that it’s worth while playing that sort of game?  If you have, I can’t tell you how utterly wrong I think you are.  Make him happy—­oh, I know—­but what extraordinary cheek on your part!  I as near as possible gave you away—­I did really.  Besides, what did he mean by saying you’d advised him to buy the things—­praised them in the Gem, and all that?  You can’t have gone so far as that—­did you?”

After a moment of silence, Hilary turned abruptly and looked Peter in the face, taking the long cigar out of his mouth and holding it between two white, nervous fingers.

“Upon my word,” said Hilary, speaking rather slowly, “Talk of cheek!  Do you know what you’re accusing me of?  You and your precious taste!  Leslie and your other fool patrons seem to have given you a fair opinion of yourself.  Because you, in your omniscience, think a thing bad, which I ... which I obviously consider good, and have stated so in print ... you don’t so much as deign to argue the question, but get upon your pedestal and ask me why I tell lies.  You think one thing and I think another; of course, you must know best, but I presume I may be allowed to hold my misguided and ill-informed opinion without being accused blankly of fraud.  Upon my word, Peter ... it’s time you took to some other line of life, I think.”