“Excuse me, Percy, old chap, but do you really feel at home here?”
“No, I can’t say I do.”
“Well, then, why the devil do you have it in this style, then?”
Percy looked at the ceiling of the alcove which was painted all over with pentagrams and spirals.
“Well, my architect did it,” he muttered resignedly. “He wanted it like this. And I dared not oppose him. It is so difficult when you are not able to say that you cannot afford it. It brings so many responsibilities. Do you know, Stellan, I don’t think it is possible really to will something, really to be something for your own sake if you have lots of money.”
Stellan thought that if that was the difficulty he was ready to ease him of his burden.
“Poor Percy,” he laughed sarcastically. “The prisoner of wealth, for life.”
But then he remembered the refined little boy dressed in white behind the gates at Stonehill. And it struck him that there might perhaps be a bitter blighting truth in his exclamation. And that Percy perhaps was a shade more serious this time than usual. Stellan drummed, a little embarrassed, on the rough carved block of black oak that constituted the foot of the bed.
“I say, Percy, how are you really?”
Percy smiled an apologetic smile: