"I don't know about that," said Sydney, lightly. "Perhaps it is for the better, after all. You see, you are now laying yourself out to persuade your fellowmen that you can cure them of all the ills that flesh is heir to! But I'll tell you what I have noticed, old man, and what others beside me have noticed. We miss you up in town. You never come to the Club now. The men say you must be ill, or married, or breaking up, or under petticoat government—all stuff and nonsense, you know; but that is what they say."
"They can't be all right," said Brooke, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "but some of them may be." He made a perfectly needless excursion across the room to fetch a cue from the rack that he did not want, while Sydney smoked on and watched him with amused and rather curious eyes. "I suppose I am a little under petticoat government," said Dalton, examining his cue with interest, and then laying it down on the table, "as you may see for yourself. But my sister manages everything so cleverly that I don't mind answering to the reins and letting her get me well in hand."
"No one ever had a better excuse for submitting to petticoat government. But you know what is always thought of a man when he begins to give up his club."
"I am afraid it can't be helped. Then again—perhaps there is another reason. Edith, you know, has a little place of her own, about a mile from here, and she tells me that she will not keep house for me much longer—even to rescue me from club life. The fact is, she wants me to marry."
"Oh, now I see it all; you have let the cat out the bag! And you are going to humor her in that, too?"
"Well, I hardly think I should marry just to humor my sister. But—who knows? She is always at me, and a continual dropping——"
"Wears away the stony heart of Brooke Dalton. Why, what a converted clubbist you will be!"
"There was always a corner of my heart, Campion, in which I rebelled against our bachelor's paradise at the Oligarchy—and you would have opened your eyes if you could have seen into that corner through the smoke and gossip of the old days in Pall Mall."
"The old days of six months ago!" said Sydney, good-humoredly.
"Do you know that Edith and I are going abroad next week?"