Surbiton Cottage was becoming to him anything but the abode of happiness that it had once been.

A year ago he had been the hero of the Hampton Sundays; he could not but now feel that Alaric had, as it were, supplanted him with his own friends.

The arrival even of so insignificant a person as Captain Cuttwater--and Captain Cuttwater was very insignificant in Norman's mind--had done much to produce this state of things.

He had been turned out of his bedroom at the cottage, and had therefore lost those last, loving, lingering words, sometimes protracted to so late an hour, which had been customary after Alaric's departure to his inn--those last lingering words which had been so sweet because their sweetness had not been shared with his friend.
He could not be genial and happy at Surbiton Cottage; but he was by no means satisfied with himself that he should not have been so.

When he found that he had been surly with Alaric, he was much more angry with himself than Alaric was with him.