"By the way, how is Lily?"
"Happy as a queen when I left her this morning, and the boy, oh! Jack, a beauty. He was shouting fit to knock the house down: you could have heard him in Goring. I left early, but Kit got up and breakfasted with me. Knowing how she hates getting up early, I put that down at its proper value. But she didn't attend to me much: she has no thoughts except for Lily and the boy."
"Kit has behaved like a real trump all through this," said Jack. "Never a word or a look of reproach to me. She's just been cheery, and simple, and splendid. You know, Toby, she is utterly changed since—since that time before Easter. We had a long talk the day after you and Lily left us there two months ago. I was never so surprised in my life."
"At what?"
"At what she said, and at what I said—perhaps most of what I said. She told me she was going to try not to be such a brute. And, upon my soul, I thought it was an excellent plan. I said I would try too."
Toby laughed.
"There's your whisky," he said. "Hang it all! I haven't got any money. You'll have to pay for it yourself, Jack—and mine, too. So you and Kit made a bargain?"
Jack glanced round the room, which had emptied of all its well-dressed, weary occupants. He and Toby were alone.
"Yes, we made a bargain. The worst of it was that neither of us know how to try, so we consulted Lily. Did it ever occur to you, Toby, that you have married the nicest girl that ever breathed?"