Mr. Jordan Tant shook his head sadly. "It's quite impossible," he said. "I'm a useful man when there's no one else about; there you have me in a nutshell. If you had persisted in your folly, and had remained in Arcadia Street, it might have happened that some fine morning, or some fine evening, when Enid was more bored than usual, she would have said that she would put up with me for the rest of her life; and we should have got on very well. But about you always," he went on petulantly, "is a species of storm-cloud—a very whirlwind of romantic excitement. Now there's no whirlwind about me—and it's really the whirlwind fellows that attract the girls. One never knows what you're going to do; while, on the other hand, everyone knows what I'm going to do every hour of the day. I'm a sort of damp squib, that just fizzles about on its bit of ground, and does no harm to anybody; you're a gorgeous sort of rocket, that might even set fire to a town if you felt that way inclined. At all events, while I'm fizzing about down below, you'll be illuminating your bit of sky."
"You're really most complimentary," said Gilbert Byfield. "But suppose I tell you that I've no intention of stepping into the place you have so laboriously made for yourself—what then?"
"It wouldn't make the least difference," said Tant, shaking his head. "Mrs. Ewart-Crane is all for you; she never ceases to speak of you. I think she knows that one of these days you'll go back and settle down comfortably with Enid. You see, the thing is really arranged."
"Oh—nonsense!" exclaimed Gilbert impatiently. "That was a boy and girl affair—a sort of arrangement made between our people, years and years ago. Besides, suppose I don't want to settle down—what then?"
"They'll make you; they'll persuade you," said Mr. Tant gloomily. "Mrs. Ewart-Crane is a mother, and has one thought in her mind, and one only—Enid's future. You'll simply be told that you've got to get married. After that, perhaps, they'll let you run about as much as you like—that is, within limits."
"We shall see about that," said his friend. "By the way, what are you doing to-night? We might dine together."
"I am taking Enid and her mother to dinner and to the theatre," said Mr. Tant with dignity. "Perhaps you'd like to suggest that you will go too?"
"Certainly," said Gilbert, with alacrity. "Most kind of you; I'll join you with pleasure."
"I knew it!" Mr. Jordan Tant threw up his hands in a sort of comical despair. "I can see myself escorting Mrs. Ewart-Crane all the evening, and compelled to be polite while inwardly boiling. It's a very unfair world."
Just as Gilbert was going Mr. Tant called him back, to deliver a word of warning. "Understand me clearly, Byfield," he said, "I will not have you springing in suddenly in any dramatic fashion. You shall be announced in a commonplace way—your return referred to as something quite of an ordinary kind. I will fetch the ladies this evening, but I shall tell them that you await us at the restaurant. There shall be no surprises."