He greeted Ernest rather _de haut en bas_, that is to say he
began by trying to do so, but the affair tailed off unsatisfactorily.
His sister presented her cheek to him to be kissed. How he hated it; he
had been dreading it for the last three hours. She, too, was distant and
reproachful in her manner, as such a superior person was sure to be. She
had a grievance against him inasmuch as she was still unmarried. She
laid the blame of this at Ernest's door; it was his misconduct she
maintained in secret, which had prevented young men from making offers to
her, and she ran him up a heavy bill for consequential damages. She and
Joey had from the first developed an instinct for hunting with the
hounds, and now these two had fairly identified themselves with the older
generation--that is to say as against Ernest. On this head there was an
offensive and defensive alliance between them, but between themselves
there was subdued but internecine warfare.
This at least was what Ernest gathered, partly from his recollections of
the parties concerned, and partly from his observation of their little
ways during the first half-hour after his arrival, while they were all
together in his mother's bedroom--for as yet of course they did not know
that he had money.
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