"I don't think we shall ever have a better time than we've had for the last year at Cambridge," said Betty. "And think of another summer term there together."
Lucius's face lit up. "There's nothing like a summer term at Cambridge when the girl you're in love with is there," he said. "We'll go on the Backs in a canoe every fine afternoon. I say, Betty, do you remember that backwater?"
"Of course I do, you silly boy," said Betty. "I haven't forgiven you yet for getting me to go up it on false pretences. I'll see that you don't get me there again though."
"I'll take particular good care that I do," said Lucius. "I like that backwater better than any place in Cambridge. Betty, what shall you do when I've gone down?"
"I know I shall be very miserable," said Betty, her face falling. "But don't let us talk about that. We shall have another summer term together."
Dr. Toller was making himself pleasant to his hostess. He was an agreeable man when he succeeded in banishing from his mind "the Problems that confront the Age," and brought himself down to the level of those who are content to let the Age worry along in its own way without making too much noise about it. Mrs. Binney, at the head of her own table, was an attractive figure in a gown of rich black silk, festooned with hangings of lace, and smiled engagingly at the Doctor's conversation.
"Yes, Doctor," she said, in answer to a remark from him, "I feel I am a very fortunate woman. I have a comfortable house and the best of husbands. Peter is consideration itself to all my little whims, and I assure you I have a great many whims. There was a time when I feared that this happiness would never come to me. You know all about it and were very kind to me when I thought it my duty to cut myself off from all these bright prospects. I am thankful that that trouble passed away and I was not compelled to spend the rest of my life by myself. There is the closest confidence between me and my husband. He is of a sanguine disposition, and I think I may say that any weight of character I may have attained to—and you know, Doctor, I am a weighty woman in more ways than one—keeps the balance true. There is not a happier couple in all Bloomsbury than Peter and myself, and you know that in marrying him I have gained a son, which is a great joy to me, for I never had a child of my own. Lucius treats me with the greatest respect and affection, and I could not be fonder of him than if he were my own. I am as proud as anyone of his success to-day. Cambridge has not proved an unmixed source of pleasure to me, as you know, but I have seldom performed a more agreeable duty than when I arranged this light blue silk on the table this afternoon with my own hands. Anything that I can do towards making the dear boy's life happy with the sweet girl he is going to marry I shall do, as if they were my own children, and consider myself fortunate in being permitted to do."
If Mrs. Binney could speak in such terms of gratitude of the new life she had entered upon, what words could be too strong for her husband to use in describing his content in having gained as his helpmate that most estimable woman. She was the theme on which he was expatiating to Mrs. Jermyn while the conversations already recorded were going on around him.
"Nobody knows," Mr. Binney was saying, "what that woman has been to me. She has stuck by me in sickness and in health, when I was working at the business to which I was brought up, and when I was trying to do something that I oughtn't have tried to do. You know all about that, Elizabeth, so I don't mind mentioning it to you, although it's all over now. I can't say that I'm altogether sorry to have had the mental training that University life affords. Nobody can deny that there's a difference between a man who has been at the University and one who hasn't. You've had a husband at Oxford and a son at Cambridge and you know that as well as I do. But still on the whole I acknowledge that Oxford and Cambridge are for the young fellows. When I saw Lucius pulling away in such perfect style in that boat on Saturday afternoon I can tell you it warmed my heart to see it. And Martha feels just the same as I do about it. She told me so. Nobody knows, Elizabeth, what a treasure I've found in that woman. And as for Lucius, well, he didn't take to the idea kindly at first—I don't know that it was to be expected that he should—but they're as fond of one another as they can be now, and—and it makes me very happy to see it—very happy."
The conversation became more general after this, and great were the merriment and goodwill round Mr. Binney's table.