“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, “I had to ask that chap Val Dartie to dine with us tonight. He wanted to give you lunch and show you B.N.C. , so I thought I’d better; then you needn’t go. I don’t like him much.”

Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.

“Why not?”

“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What are his people like, Dad? He’s only a second cousin, isn’t he?”

Jolyon took refuge in a smile.

“Ask Holly,” he said; “she saw his uncle.”