"Why, how can he be, Mum, when he knew your name?" laughed Hermione. "Do tell us about it, Sir John."
Barclay crossed his knees and folded his arms. He was a man with a fine, smooth shaven face of the kind that might belong equally well to either a very fine actor or a judge. His light blue eyes had a fair and level gaze, and his finest feature, his mouth, was strong and benevolent, with well-set corners, and firmness without harshness.
"It's quite natural," he said to Mrs. Walbridge, "that you should not remember me. We met just before I went to the Argentine, as it was then called, thirty-one years ago, at the house of some people named Fenwick, near High Wycombe. You were staying in the house, and my father was the dean of the parish, and the Fenwick boys and girls were my best friends. We had a picnic to Naphill, and danced, and we drove on a brake to Chalfont St. Giles to see Milton's house. Now do you remember?"
A deep, beautifying flush swept across the face under the deplorable old hat. "I remember the picnic perfectly. A bottle of cold tea got broken and ruined somebody's frock, do you remember? And I remember Milton's house, but," she shook her head a little embarrassed but truthful, "I'm awfully sorry, but I can't remember you."
There was a little pause, during which his fine face did not change.
"You were very preoccupied, I think," he added. "You weren't particularly happy at the time, and I was only a long-legged loon of a boy of twenty-one. But I remember," he went on, "I've always remembered."
"Well, then, darling, you won't mind having Sir John as a son-in-law, will you?"
It was Hermione who spoke. She was always the readiest of speech, being the least fine of feeling of the three girls, and the slight strain that lay on them all merged away at her commonplace words.
Sir John took his leave a few minutes later, and as he shook hands with Mrs. Walbridge, he looked down at her very kindly, very gently. The three others had gone into the bedroom on purpose to leave the two elders alone a moment.
"She's very young, you know," Violet Walbridge said, without preliminary.