Antonia, seeing Roger go off meekly in Violet's wake, was more than ever convinced that she would be the very person for him to marry.
The events of the next few days did nothing to weaken this conviction. Not only was Roger installed in a furnished flat, but an entire wardrobe was purchased for him, so that Kenneth regained possession of his shirts and pyjamas, and Murgatroyd was induced to look upon Violet for the first time with approval.
Roger was so well pleased with his flat that he roused himself sufficiently to give a dinner-party as a sort of house-warming, and invited not only his half-brother and sister, but Violet and tiles as well. He did not invite Mesurier, for various comprehensive reasons which he was quite ready to expound to any and everybody. It had naturally been impossible to keep Mesurier's financial antics a secret from him, and he was only deterred from dismissing him from the firm by Kenneth's warning that to do so would be tantamount to fixing the date of his wedding to Antonia. “If you want that tailor's-dummy for a brother-in-law, let me tell you that I don't!” said Kenneth.
“Certainly not,” said Roger. “In fact, that was why I thought I'd sack him. Though, mind you, I should like to sack him on my own account, because for one thing I don't care for him, and for another I'm all for sacking someone just to see what it feels like.”
“I suppose you only know what it feels like to be sacked,” remarked Kenneth waspishly.
“Exactly,” nodded Roger, utterly impervious to this or any other insult. “And, funnily enough, the last time I got the boot it was for almost the same thing. Only, as it happens, I wasn't thinking of paying the money back. I don't say I mightn't have thought of it, if I'd had any means of doing it, but I hadn't. However, if you think sacking Mesurier will make Tony marry him, I won't do it. Because if she marries him she'll expect me to call him Rudolph, and I don't mind telling you that I don't like the name. In fact, I think it's a damn silly name. What's more, if I had to call him by it I should feel very self-conscious. Not that I really like tiles either, but that's merely a matter of taste. There's nothing against the name as a name, nothing at all.”
He startled Kenneth, who looked up quickly and said: “Giles? Do you mean - Rot! She hasn't been on speaking terms with him for months!”
“I don't know anything about that,” answered Roger. “All I do know is that if this Rudolph excrescence can be shifted, Tony will marry Giles.”
“Well, I hope you may be right,” said Kenneth. “Giles is a nice chap. I must keep an eye on them.”
“If you take my advice you'll keep your eye on your own pictures,” said Roger. “I don't say I wouldn't rather look at almost anything else myself, but probably you don't feel like that about them.”