Of course a small army of servants was necessary to the running of such a dwelling, and Roy, Eva and Jess had many laughable experiences at first in accustoming themselves to being waited on. But Rex took to luxury as naturally as a duck to water.
He seemed to be growing up terribly fast since a fortune had come into the family. He insisted on having a latch key as soon as they moved to town, and felt very much aggrieved because his mother would not buy him a dog cart.
“But you are too young, my son,” Mrs. Pell said in response to this request. “Remember you are not yet sixteen.”
“Well, I shall be next month,” he replied, “and I know perfectly well how to manage a horse, I’ve been out with Scott so much.”
He had had Scott and Charlie Minturn to visit him just as soon as they were settled and took solid satisfaction in entertaining them in the style to which he had been accustomed at their homes. But they did not seem to have any better time than they used to do down at “the Pellery” at Marley.
In fact they had enjoyed it there because things were different. Now it was Rex who was different They could not state in just what the difference lay, but they felt it. And when they had gone Rex realized that he had not enjoyed their visit as much as he had expected to.
To be sure, the “solid satisfaction” was there at the thought of having entertained them as he had long wished to be able to do, but then there had seemed a constraint which had not existed before.
The trouble was here: he had relied on externals to please them this time, and had not exerted himself personally as he had been wont to do. In fact Rex was not at heart as contented as he had expected to be.
To be sure, he had now all the clothes he wanted, shoes galore, and more spending money than any boy of fifteen ought to have, but all the while he was thinking that he was missing something. And he was not exactly sure what this was.
He thought he had discovered one of the things toward the latter part of September, when the people who occupied the adjoining house to the Pells returned to town. They were evidently a family of great wealth—the Harringtons. Rex found what their name was from the servants.