‘Asses and savants to the centre,’ said Gillian; ‘like the orders to the French army in Egypt.’
‘But what’s all this about? You wanted me to look after you! Is it that Alexis?’
‘Oh, Japs! Mamma knows all about it and papa. It was only that he was ridiculous because I was so silly as to think I could help him with his Greek.’
‘You! With his Greek! I pity him!’
‘Yes. I found he soon knew too much for me,’ said Gillian meekly; ‘but, indeed, Japs, it wasn’t very bad! He only sent me a valentine, and Aunt Jane says I need not have been so angry.’
‘A cat may look at a king,’ said Jasper loftily. ‘It is a horrid bad thing for a girl to be left to herself without a brother worth having.’
So Gillian got off pretty easily, and after all the walk was not greatly spoilt. They coalesced again with the other three, who were tolerably discreet, and found the debate on the White gentility had been resumed. Ivinghoe was philosophically declaring ‘that in these days one must take up with everybody, so it did not matter if one was a little more of a cad than another; he himself was fag at Eton to a fellow whose father was an oilman, and who wasn’t half a bad lot.’
‘An oilman, Ivy,’ said his sister; ‘I thought he imported petroleum.’
‘Well, it’s all the same. I believe he began as an oilman.’
‘We shall have Fergus reporting that he’s a petroleuse,’ put in Jasper.