This was the plan in its original shape with which Michael sought out Arthur Agar at his rooms in college at Cambridge. It was further assisted and elaborated by a circumstance which the originator could scarcely have been expected to foresee--the fact of Arthur Agar's love for Dora, which was at this time beginning to take to itself a definite existence. It began, as all love does, with a want more or less elevated according to the nature of the wanter. Arthur Agar required some one for whom to buy those small and feminine luxuries which he could not for manly shame purchase to himself. He delighted in spending money in those establishments tersely called _magasins de luxe_ in the country from whence their contents do emanate. He therefore got into the habit of "picking up little things" for Dora, with the result that she in her turn picked up that very small object, his heart.
Michael had seen enough of Arthur Agar during this short interview to endow him with the same need of contempt which he had entertained towards Anna Agar, the mother. The strong personal resemblance, the obvious weakness of the boy's face, and, above all, that sense of having the upper hand, which makes brave men out of cowards, gave him confidence. It seemed that he had only to play the cards thrust into his hand.
"I knew," he pursued, "Jem Agar very well. He was a peculiar man: very quiet, very reserved, and just the man to make a difficult position rather more difficult."
Arthur's intelligence was not keen enough to follow the drift of this remark.
"He hinted to me once or twice," went on Seymour Michael, "that things were not very harmonious at home."
"I was not aware of it," answered Arthur, whose innate gentlemanliness told him that this should be held sacred ground.
"He was a first-rate soldier," he said warmly.
It was obvious to both that they were not getting on. Something seemed to hold them both back, paralysing the _savoir-faire_ which both had acquired in their intercourse with the world. Seymour Michael was puzzled. He was not afraid of this boy. He knew himself to be stronger--capable of over-mastering him entirely. But for the first time in his life he felt awkward and ill at ease.