"Don't you think he's earned me?" Edith retaliated.
"And you him," Huntington retorted. "Everything is as it should be. You are just the girl for him, and he will make you a husband in a thousand. I need not tell you how cordially I have congratulated him."
"I don't think our Society proved very effective," she remarked dryly.
"On the contrary, it demonstrated its efficiency by the present most satisfactory exceptions.—But you are giving me a great many mysteries to explain to Merry!"
The evening before Huntington felt it necessary to return to his patient he touched upon a subject which had been avoided.
"Mamma," he said to Mrs. Thatcher, "I think—"
"Don't you dare to call me that, Monty Huntington!" Marian exclaimed vehemently. "If I am to go through life with a son-in-law older than I am, at least I won't be called 'mamma'!"
"I'm trying to be respectful," Huntington explained mischievously.
"Never you mind that,—call me 'Marian.' That at least will give me the benefit of the doubt."
"I'm sorry to mark my entrance into the family by causing mortification," Huntington continued in mock-seriousness. "It never occurred to me, if my prospective wife made no objections, that my age would be offensive to her parents. But the case isn't so serious as Ned Fordham's, is it?"