"Well," he said, "when is it to be?"
Peter looked across at Rhoda.
"I should hope very soon," he said. It was obviously safer, and safety was the object, to have it very soon.
"How soon can one get married? There have to be banns and so on, don't there? The third time of asking—that brings it to the eighteenth of December. What about the nineteenth, Rhoda? That's a Monday."
"Really, Peter ..." Rhoda blushed more than ever. "That seems awfully soon."
"Well," said Peter, blind to the unusualness of such a discussion at the dinner-table, "the sooner the better, don't you think? There's nothing to wait for. I don't suppose we shall ever have more money to do it on than we have now. I know of a man who waited years and years because he thought he hadn't got quite enough, and he got a little more each year, and at the end of six years he thought to double his fortune by putting it all on a winner, because he was getting so impatient. And the horse came in last. So the girl broke it off and married someone else, and the man's heart broke and he took to drink."
"Well?" enquired Miss Matthews, who thought Peter habitually irrelevant in his remarks.
"Well—so let's be married on December the nineteenth."
"I'm sure," said Rhoda, "we're quite embarrassing everybody, being so public. Let's settle it afterwards, Peter, when we're alone."
But she too meant to have it as soon as might be after the third time of asking; it was safer, much safer, so.