"Eh!"
"Don't look so astonished. It's the advice he gave to Archie Windebank."
"I see: and he told you. But the pater's right over that."
"How do you know?"
"That's telling."
Later in the afternoon, at tea, Mavis learned from Perigal much of his life since they had last met. It appeared that he had been to Oxford, to be sent down during his first term; that he had tried (and failed) for Sandhurst; also a variety of occupations, all apparently without success, until his father, angered at some scrape he had got into, had packed him off to Riga, where he had secured some sort of a billet for his son. Finally, in defiance of parental orders, he had left that "beastly hole" and was living at home until his father should turn him out.
"Isn't it all rather a pity?" Mavis asked.
"All what?"
"Your wasted life? And you've had so many good chances."
"I've had some fun out of it all. And, after all, what's the use of trying?"