Lord Evelyn said, and his sweet voice quavered distressingly up and down, “I suppose it’s been a good joke.  But I wouldn’t have thought it of you, Peter Margerison; I wouldn’t have thought it of you.  Of your brother I say nothing; it’s a dishonest world, and he’s like the rest, and I can’t say he ever gave me any reason to trust him, so I’ve myself to blame.  But you—­I did trust you.  I thought you were a nice boy, and cared too much for nice things to lie about them.”  He broke off, and looked round the room—­at the Diana and Actaeon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous collection.  They weren’t nearly all monstrous, either—­not even most—­but he didn’t know that; they might be for all he could tell.  He looked at them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that which gave Peter his deepest stab of pitiful pain.

“You’ve made a fool of me between you,” said Lord Evelyn, and suddenly sat down, as if very tired.  Leslie sat down too, ponderous and silent in the shadowed background.  But Peter remained standing before them all, his head a little bent, his eyes on Denis Urquhart’s profile.  He was wondering vaguely if Denis would say anything, and if so what it would be.

Still looking at Denis, he made foolish apologies because he was always polite.

“I’m frightfully sorry....  I’ve been frightfully sorry all along....”

Lord Evelyn lifted a white hand, waving his absurdities contemptuously aside.

“All along!  Oh, I see.  At least you’re honest now; you don’t attempt to deny that you’ve known all about it, then.”  There was perhaps a fresh ring of bitterness in his voice, as if some last faint hope had been killed by Peter’s words.

Cheriton, whose eyes were studying the floor, lifted them sharply for a moment, and glanced at Denis, who was lighting a cigarette and didn’t look at him.

“You knew that first evening, when you looked at the things,” said Lord Evelyn, half a question still in his querulous voice.  “You saw through them at once, of course.  Anyone but a blind fool would have, I’ve no manner of doubt.  Cheriton here says he saw you see through them.”

Peter stammered over it.  “I—­I—­knew they weren’t much.”

Lord Evelyn turned to Cheriton whose face was still bent down as if he didn’t much like the scene now he had brought it about.

“You were right, as usual, Jim.  And Denis was wrong.  Denis, you know,” he added to Peter, “was inclined to put your morals above your intelligence.  He said you couldn’t have known.  Cheriton told him he was sure you had.  It seems Cheriton was right.”

It seemed that he was.  Peter imagined that Cheriton would always be right.

After a moment’s silence Peter gathered that they were all waiting to hear if he had anything to say about it.  He hadn’t much, but he might as well say it, such as it was.