But it was delightfully Urquhart-like, this lordly assumption of a share in the government of a country.  No doubt it was worth having, because all the things Urquhart wanted and obtained were that; he had an eye for good things, like Peter, only he gained possession of them, and Peter could only admire from afar.

They were talking about the election prospects at dinner on the evening of the fifteenth of November.  They were a young and merry party.  At one end of the table was Denis, looking rather pale after a hard day’s hunting, and very much amused with life; at the other Lucy, in a white frock, small and open-eyed like a flower, and very much amused too; and between them were the people, young mostly, and gay, who were staying with them.  Lucy, who had been brought up in a secluded Bohemianism, found it very funny and nice having a house-party, and so many servants to see after them all that one needn’t bother to run round and make sure everyone had soap, and so on.

One person, not young, who was staying there, was Lord Evelyn Urquhart.  Lucy loved him.  He loved her, and told funny stories.  Sometimes, between the stories, she would catch his near-sighted, screwed up eyes scanning her face with a queer expression that might have been wistfulness; he seemed at times to be looking for something in her face, and finding it.  Particularly when she laughed, in her chuckling, gurgling way, he looked like this, and would grow grave suddenly.  They had talked together about all manner of things, being excellent friends, but only once so far about Lucy’s cousin Peter.  Once had been too much, Lucy had found.  The Margerisons were a tabooed subject with Lord Evelyn Urquhart.

Denis shrugged his shoulders over it.  “They did him brown, you see,” he explained, in his light, casual way.  “Uncle Evelyn can’t forgive that.  And it’s because he was so awfully fond of Peter that he’s so bitter against him now.  I never mention him; it’s best not....  You know, you keep giving the poor dear shocks by looking like Peter, and laughing like him, and using his words.  You are rather like, you know.”

“I know,” said Lucy.  “It’s not only looking and laughing and words; we think alike too.  So perhaps if he gets fond of me he’ll forgive Peter sometime.”

“He’s an implacable old beggar,” Denis said.  “It’s stupid of him.  It never seems to me worth while to get huffy; it’s so uncomfortable.  He expects too much of people, and when they disappoint him he—­”

“Takes umbradge,” Lucy filled in for him.  That was another of Peter’s expressions; they shared together a number of such stilted, high-sounding phrases, mostly culled either out of Adelphi melodrama or the fiction of a by-gone age.