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THE WINDOWstockings which those "great fellows," all wellgrown, angular, ruthless youngsters, must require.As for being sure which was which, or in what orderthey came, that was beyond him. He called themprivately after the Kings and Queens of England;Cam the Wicked, James the Ruthless, Andrew theJust, Prue the Fair—for Prue would have beauty,he thought, how could she help it?—and Andrewbrains. While he walked up the drive and LilyBriscoe said yes and no and capped his comments(for she was in love with them all, in love with thisworld) he weighed Ramsay’s case, commiseratedhim, envied him, as if he had seen him divest him-self of all those glories of isolation and austeritywhich crowned him in youth to cumber himselfdefinitely with fluttering wings and clucking domes-ticities. They gave him something—William Bankesacknowledged that; it would have been pleasant ifCam had stuck a flower in his coat or clamberedover his shoulder, to look at a picture of Vesuviusin eruption; but they had also, his old friends couldnot but feel, destroyed something. What would astranger think now? What did this Lily Briscoethink? Could one help noticing that habits grew onhim? eccentricities, weaknesses perhaps? It wasastonishing that a man of his intellect could stoopso low as he did—but that was too harsh a phrase—37