“Don’t look at me like that at this distance, or I shall have to wear goggles, as the man did who went courting the Sun.”
“How supremely ridiculous you are! And I thought you such a sensible, serious man.”
“Mrs. Lambert put that in your head. We used to meet at the annual dinners of the Bible Society.”
“Why do you tell me such stuff?”
“It’s a fact. Her father and my aunt were in that swim, and we were sympathisers.”
“Mercenary people!”
“It worked very well in her case; not so well in mine. But we conceived a profound respect for each other then. But tell me, Marion, when is it to be? Why put off the inevitable?”
“It isn’t inevitable—and I’m only twenty-three.”
“Only twenty-three,
And as good fish in the sea”
he responded, laughing. “Yes, but you’ve set the precedent for a courtship of four years and a bit, and what man could face it?”