He wondered how long this unexpected holiday was going to last; he supposed about four days. This was really the first time that Ralf had made any mark in his life; he was five years older and had always kept himself very much aloof. They had had many quarrels as brothers always have. At times Ralf had been almost a prig, particularly when he was head of the house at Selchurch, and his first year at Oxford. Anyway it was through him that Peter was now sitting in comfort instead of marching his section up a wet hill in “blob” formation, and in the warmth of heart that can come only from physical comfort, Peter prepared to be very gracious towards his brother.

At last the train slowed to a stop and stood panting but unexhausted like a well-trained runner. Peter suddenly realized that they had reached Bulfrey. He snatched up his hat and bag, buttoned his coat and leapt onto the platform. Ralf was striding down towards him.

Peter had seen him in uniform before but then it had been with the timid pride of a 1914 subaltern. Now after three years fighting he looked wonderfully fit and hansome. A slanting ray of sunlight lit up his fair hair; he was wearing no cap.

“Hullo, Peter,” he cried, shaking hands, “we were afraid that you mightn’t be able to get the train. I suppose you’ve had lunch?”

“Yes thanks, I managed to get some in town. Pretty fair rush though. Hold on a second while I find my ticket.” He handed Ralf his bag and began exploring his pockets. Finding it, at last, between the leaves of his school “blue-book,” he gave it to the collector and taking back his bag followed his brother out.

“Is that all the luggage you’ve got?” he asked, “That’s splendid; we shall be able to bring it up with us now. I’ve got the dog-cart outside. Moira’s looking after it. She was coming into Bulfrey to do some shopping so I asked her to come and meet you.”

Moira Gage was the daughter of the vicar of Bulfrey Combe. Peter’s age, she and her brother had been the constant companions of the Audley boys before they went to school. They had seen less of each other as they grew up, Chris had gone to Winchester, Ralf and Peter to Selchurch, but the Vicarage was next door to the Hall and they had seen a good deal of each other in the holidays. Their fathers were close friends.

“Good work, I was afraid she would be away doing that V.A.D. work. I only saw her once all last holidays. Ah there she is.”

They had come out into the small station yard. On the other side of it stood the dog-cart and in it stood Moira Gage, one hand holding the reins, the other shading her eyes. She was tall, slim and pale, not really pretty but graceful and attractive; from a distance she looked like a Shepperson drawing but when you got nearer you saw depths in her grey, scrutable eyes, which his charming mannerisms could never convey; she was dressed in a tweed coat and a skirt with a grey silk scarf over her shoulders. Peter ran forward and greeted her.

“Peter,” she said, “before you do anything else, do make Ralf put his hat on. He looks simply dreadful and I’m sure he’d be court-martialled or something, if anyone saw.”

“Three years of military life shatter any illusions about military discipline,” Ralf replied, climbing up into the dog-cart, “the only hardened militarist nowadays is the newly conscripted civilian.”

“Now he’s being clever again,” Moira laughed, “I really thought you lost that when you came down from Oxford. Among other things, it’s very bad manners when you are in stupid company.”

“Thank you,” Peter expostulated, “I wish you’d speak for yourself. I’m in the sixth now and write essays on industrial history and all sorts of things.”

“You seem to regard your history with most unreasonable pride,” said Moira, “from all I hear it sounds only slack.”

“All pride is unreasonable” said Ralf. To Peter it seemed that he had paused a moment hesitating whether “no pride is unreasonable” was the more impressive; he had long gone beyond the stage when a sweeping generalization could pass as an epigram.

“The aphorisms of a disappointed man,” said Moira. “The next remark like that Ralf and I get out and walk.”

Bulfrey Combe was a mile and a half out from Bulfrey and still kept most of the appearance of a country village. Bulfrey was a small town with two or three streets of cheap shops, a bank, and a small glass factory which formed the nucleus of a large area of slums which was gradually spreading its grimy tentacles along the roads into the

“Oh, yes,” said Lurnstein, “I had ideals at one time all right—we all do, you know.”

He was leaning back from the small table, on which the tea was set, eyeing my half finished portrait. I had had a long sitting and his beautiful china tea in his thin blue and white china came as a great relief.

He looked extremely handsome, I thought, in the golden afternoon light, in his picturesque studio overall; Jewish, of course, but with a distinguished air that made one overlook his stumpy hands and other signs of ill-breeding.

“Perhaps you’d like to hear something of my life,” he said, “it has not been without interest.”

He lit another cigarette, pushed the box, a beautiful piece of Moorish inlaid work, to within my easy reach, and then drawing a deep breath of smoke, began:

“I started life about as low as any new peer. My father was a Jew and we lived in the Jewish quarter off the Commercial Road. When he was sober he was very kind to me and my brothers. My mother never had any great significance for me, but I realize now that she must have been a very hard worked and hard treated woman as upon her fell the sole burden of supporting her husband and large family.

“From the time when my first memories start I have always been interested in drawing, and I used to use every scrap of paper and every stump of pencil I could find, but lines never satisfied me—I wanted colours and tones. And these I could not afford. Coloured chalks used to be my chief delight and I used to take them from the desk of the Rabbi who managed the local synagogue and to whom I used to go once a week for religious instruction. For my father, though quite indifferent himself, was always most particular that I should attend. The Rabbi used the chalks, I remember, to draw maps of the divisions of the tribes with.

“Well one day he caught me taking his chalks, but instead of beating me, as the red-haired master at the board school would have done, he asked me all about my drawing and finally persuaded me to let him take some of my work away to show to his rich friends. For he was the son of a very rich man himself and had been to the ’Varsity but had sacrificed it all to help his fellow countrymen in the slums. I tell you that there are just as fine acts of self-sacrifice done by the rabbis in the Yiddish quarter as by any of your parsons at Kennington, only they don’t brag about it.

“Well, he showed my work to his friends in the West, with the result that a few days later a man with a top hat and spats came to the door and asked to see me and my work. He gave half-crowns to all my brothers but he didn’t give me half a crown, and I remember, I was very offended until I heard that I was to be taken away and taught painting.

“That was the beginning of my ‘career.’ Those Jews ran me for the next five years, and I painted just as I was told to at the Academy school, to which I was sent. And everyone was very kind to me and I was introduced to lots of rich men, not only the moneyed Jews but men of your class who spend lots of money on being bored and are called ‘in society’ by lower middle class novelists. I began to acquire social polish and was being shaped into a pretty little gentleman; but all the time particularly when I could feel the grain of the canvas under my brush, I was dissatisfied.