rt on her maiden voyage to America,
and Roger had a case at a county court outside London. In a vague way,
Ninian had intended to talk to Roger about his engagement, to reason
with him, as he put it. Gilbert had pointed out that the chief
employment of women is to disrupt the friendships of men. "Men," he had
said to Ninian and Henry after Roger had gone to bed, "take years to
make up a friendship, and then a female comes along and busts it up in a
couple of weeks!" Ninian did not intend to let Miss Rachel Wynne break
up _their_ friendship, and he planned a long, comprehensive and settling
conversation with Roger on the subject of females generally and of
Rachel Wynne particularly. In bed, he had invented an extraordinarily
convincing argument, before which Roger must collapse, but by the time
he had finished shaving, the argument had vanished from his mind, and
his convincing speech shrivelled into a halting, "I say, Roger, old
chap, it's a bit thick, you know!" and even that ceased to exist when he
saw Roger, with the _Times_ propped against the sugar bowl, eating bacon
and eggs as easily as if he had never betrothed himself to any woman.

"Hilloa, Roger!" said Ninian, sitting down at the table, and reaching
for the toast.

"Hilloa, Ninian!" Roger murmured, without looking up.

Magnolia entered with Ninian's breakfast and placed it before him.

"Anything in the _Times_?" Ninian said, pouring out coffee.

"Usual stuff. The bacon's salt!..."

The time, Ninian thought, was hardly suitable for a few home-thrusting
words on the subject of marriage, so he reminded Roger that he was going
to Southampton.

"Tom Arthurs has promised to show me over as much of the _Gigantic_ as
we can manage in a couple of hours. That won't be as much as I'd like to
see, but I'll try and go over her when she comes back from New York. Any
mustard about?"

"You'll be back again to-night, I suppose?"

"Probably. You're right ... this bacon is salt, damn it!"

Roger rose from the table and moved to the window where he stood for a
while looking out on the garden. It seemed to Ninian that in a moment or
two he would speak of his engagement, and so he sat still, waiting for
him to begin.

"Well," said Roger, turning away from the window and feeling for his
watch, "I must be off. So long, Ninian!"

He went out of the room quickly and in a little while, Ninian heard the
street door banging behind him.

"Damn," he said to himself, "I've j