Honour to whom honour. Arthur Agar's only thought had been one of sudden horror. He had read the telegram over twice before going out to close his outer door. Then he came back and sat weakly down at the table where he had written more scented notes than noted themes, deliberately, womanlike, to cry.
To his credit be it noted that he never thought of Stagholme, which was now his. He only thought of Jem--his no longer--Jem the open-handed, elder brother who tolerated much and said little. Having had everything that he wanted since childhood, Arthur Agar had never been in the habit of thinking about money matters. His florist's bills (and Cambridge horticulturists seem to water their flowers with Château Lafitte), his confectioner's account, and his tailor's little note had always been paid without a murmur. Thus, want of money--the chief incentive to crime and criminal thought--had never come within measurable distance of this gentle undergraduate.
Truth to tell, he had never devoted much thought to the future. He had always vaguely concluded that his mother and Jem would "do something"; and in the meantime there were important matters requiring his attention. There was the _menu_ to prepare for an approaching little dinner. There was always an approaching dinner, and always a _menu_ in execrable French on a satin-faced card with the college arms in a coat of many colours. There was the florist to be interviewed and the arrangement of the table to be superintended; the finishing touch to be given to the floral decoration thereof by the master-hand.
Jem's death seemed to knock away one of the supports of the future, and Arthur Agar even in his grief was conscious of the impending necessity of having to act for himself some day.
At length he lifted his head, and through the intricate pattern of the very newest design in art muslins the daylight fell on his face. It was a face which in France is called _chiffonné_; but the term is never applied to the visage masculine. A diminutive and slightly _retrousse_ nose, gentle grey eyes of the drowning-fly description, and a sensitive mouth scarcely hidden by a fair moustache of downward tendency.
Here was a man made to be ruled all his life--probably by a woman. With a little more strength it might have been a melancholy face; as it stood, it was suggestive of nothing stronger than fretfulness. There was a vague distress in the eyes and in the whole countenance which mistaken and practical souls would probably put down to a defective digestion or a feeble vitality. More than one enthusiastic disciple of Aesculapius studying at Caius professed to have discovered the evidence of some internal disease in Arthur Agar's distressed eyes; but his complaint was not of the body at all.