"As long as you can stop," said my mother.
When the ladies had left us after dinner I congratulated Loring on the absence of his moustache.
"Sonia didn't like it," he explained. "Port? By all means. I'm as tired as a dog. It's gone off thundering well, and they all loved her, as I knew they would. All the same, a long engagement's a strain."
"It isn't the long engagement," I said. "It's being in love. When you're safely married and don't have to sprinkle 'darlings' like a pepper-pot and can take the best chair and be snappy at breakfast——"
"Oh, you bachelors," he interrupted with a laugh. "A long engagement has its points, though." Quite frequently it prevents marriage, but I saw no object in putting this view before him. "We've been rubbing off the corners, weeding out undesirable friends—— Oh, you're safe, but Sonia rather bars Val Arden, and young Summertown's developing into too much of an Apache for my taste. We're shaking down."
"And how soon will you both be purged of all your sins?" I asked.
He did not hear the question and sat staring thoughtfully at the decanter.
"I'm afraid she finds the religious part rather hard to pick up," he said. "She will call all Catholics 'Papists.' I don't mind, but some of my people.... And when she first met the Cardinal, she insisted on shaking his hand. Of course, it's a very small point; you musn't think I'm finding fault with her. How did you think she was looking?"
"Very well," I said. "The new pearl-collar suits her."
"It isn't new," he corrected me. "We've had it in the family for some time." His voice became confidential and his manner eager, as with a man mutely asking for sympathy. "Absolutely between ourselves, George, there was rather a row about it. I got the bank to send all our stuff down to House of Steynes, and she insisted on wearing some of it. My poor mother was fearfully shocked—and said she oughtn't to have touched it till she was married. Once again, it's a very small point."