'You don't remember me. You've forgotten me,' said Mr. Dolbiac.

'It isn't Cousin Tom?' Henry guessed.

'Oh, isn't it?' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'That's just what it is.'

Henry shook his hand generously. 'I'm awfully glad to see you,' he
began, and then, feeling that he must be a man of the world: 'Come and
have a drink. Are you stopping here?'

The episode of Mrs. Ashton Portway's was, then, simply one of Cousin
Tom's jokes, and he accepted it as such without the least demur or
ill-will.

'It was you who sent that funny telegram, wasn't it?' he asked Cousin
Tom.

In the smoking-room Tom explained how he had grown a beard in obedience
to the dictates of nature, and changed his name in obedience to the
dictates of art. And Henry, for his part, explained sundry things about
himself, and about Geraldine.

The next morning, when Henry arrived at Dawes Road, decidedly late, Tom
was already there. And more, he had already told the ladies, evidently
in a highly-decorated narrative, of Henry's engagement! The situation
for Henry was delicate in the extreme, but, anyhow, his mother and aunt
had received the first shock. They knew the naked fact, and that was
something. And of course Cousin Tom always made delicate situations: it
was his privilege to do so. Cousin Tom's two aunts were delighted to see
him again, and in a state so flourishing. He was asked no inconvenient
questions, and he furnished no information. Bygones were bygones. Henry
had never been told about the trifling incident of the ten pounds.

'She's coming down to-night,' Henry said, addressing his mother, after
the mid-day meal.

'I'm very glad,' replied his mother.

'We shall be most pleased to welcome her,' Aunt Annie said. 'Well,
Tom----'

CHAPTER XXIII

SEPARATION

Henry's astonishment at finding himself so suddenly betrothed to the
finest woman in the world began to fade and perish in three days or so.
As he looked into the past with that searching eye of his, he thought he
could see that his relations with Geraldine had never ceased to develop
since their commencement, even when they had not been precisely cordial
and sincere. He remembered strange things that he had read about love in
books, things which had previously struck him as being absurd, but which
now became explanatory commentaries on the puzzling text of the episode
in the cab. It was not long before he decided that the episode in the
cab was almost a normal episode.

He