He polished his glass, screwed it into his left eye, and looked down on Peter with his whimsical, kindly scrutiny. Peter did not return the look; he stood with bent head, looking vaguely down at the Sienese chalice. That too was one of Hilary's finds. Hilary it seemed, had approved its seller in an article in the Gem.
"Damme," said Lord Evelyn suddenly, with unusual explosiveness, "if I didn't like you better when you were fifteen! Now, you blasé and soulless generation, I suppose you want to play bridge. Do you play as badly as ever, Peter? A remarkable player you were, I remember—quite remarkable. Denis always told you so. Now Cheriton will tell you so, because he's rude."
Bridge was a relief to Peter, though he was still a rather remarkable player. He played with Cheriton, who was not rude, because he was absolutely silent. It was an absurd game. Cheriton was a brilliant player, even when he was only giving half his mind to it, as he seemingly was to-night. Lord Evelyn had been a brilliant player once, and was now brilliant with alternations of eccentricity; he talked most of the time, making the game the centre of his remarks, from which he struck out along innumerable paths of irrelevancy. The Margerisons too were irrelevant; Hilary thought bridge a bore, and Peter, who thought nothing a bore, was always a little alarmed by anything so grown-up. But to-night he didn't much mind what he did, so long as he stopped looking at Lord Evelyn's things. Peter only wanted to get away; he was ashamed and perplexed and sorry and angry, and stabbed through with pity. He wanted to get out of Lord Evelyn's house, out of the range of his kindly, whimsical smile and Cheriton's curious hostile stare; he wanted to be alone with Hilary, and to understand.
The irony of Cheriton's look increased during bridge; it was certainly justified by the abstraction of Peter's play.
Lord Evelyn laughed at him. "You need Denis to keep you in order, young Peter. Lord, how frightened you used to be when Denis was stern. Smiled and pretended you weren't, but I knew...." He chuckled at the painted ceiling. "Knew a man at Oxford, Peter ... well, never mind that story now, you're too young for it.... Anyhow I make it no trumps."
At eleven o'clock Hilary and Peter went home. Lord Evelyn shook hands with Peter rather affectionately, and said, "Come and see me again soon, dear boy. Lunch with me at Florian's to-morrow—you and your wealthy friend. Busy sight-seeing, are you? How banal of you. Morning in the Duomo, afternoon on the Lido, and the Accademia to fill the spare hours; I know the dear old round. Never could be worried with it myself; too much else to do. But one manages to enjoy life even without it, so don't overwork. And come and see my toys again by daylight, and try to enthuse a little more over them next time. You're too young to be blasé. You'd better read the Gem, to encourage yourself in simple pleasures. Good-night. Good-night, Margerison."
He shook hands with them both again, possibly to make up for Cheriton, who did not shake hands at all, but stood with his own in his pockets, leaning against the wall, his eyes still on Peter's face.
"Queer manners you have, dear Jim," was what they heard Lord Evelyn say as they stepped into the Ca' delle Gemme gondola, that was taking them back to the Rio delle Beccarie.
They swung out into the faintly-shining darkness of the water-road, into which the climbing moon could not look—a darkness crossed and flecked by the red gleamings of the few gondola and sandolo lights abroad at this hour in the quiet street. They sent their own red path before them as they softly travelled; and round it the stars flickered and swam, deep down. Peter could have sworn he heard their thin, tinkling, submerged, funny song, somewhere above or beneath the soft and melodious "Chérie Birri-Bim," that someone (not Lord Evelyn's beautifully trained and taciturn poppe) was crooning near at hand.
The velvet darkness of a bridge drowned the stars for a moment; then, with a musical, abrupt cry of "Sta—i!" they swung round a corner into a narrow way that was silver and green in the face of the climbing moon.