which was
awkward; also that Peter really needn't have looked down to the lower
middle classes for a wife. Hilary believed in gentle birth; through all
his vicissitudes a pathetic pride of breeding clung to him. One might be
down at heels; one might be reduced to sordid means of livelihood, even
to shady schemes for enlarging one's income; but once a gentleman always
so, and one was not to be ranked with the bounders, the Vyvians, the
wealthy Leslies even.

Hilary looked resigned and weary. Why should Peter want to marry a
commonplace and penniless little nobody, and not so very pretty either,
though she looked nice and bright when she was animated, as now.

"Well," he said, "when is it to be?"

Peter looked across at Rhoda.

"I should hope very soon," he said. It was obviously safer, and safety
was the object, to have it very soon.

"How soon can one get married? There have to be banns and so on, don't
there? The third time of asking--that brings it to the eighteenth of
December. What about the nineteenth, Rhoda? That's a Monday."

"Really, Peter ..." Rhoda blushed more than ever. "That seems awfully
soon."

"Well," said Peter, blind to the unusualness of such a discussion at the
dinner-table, "the sooner the better, don't you think? There's nothing to
wait for. I don't suppose we shall ever have more money to do it on than
we have now. I know of a man who waited years and years because he
thought he hadn't got quite enough, and he got a little more each year,
and at the end of six years he thought to double his fortune by putting
it all on a winner, because he was getting so impatient. And the horse
came in last. So the girl broke it off and married someone else, and the
man's heart broke and he took to drink."

"Well?" enquired Miss Matthews, who thought Peter habitually irrelevant
in his remarks.

"Well--so let's be married on December the nineteenth."

"I'm sure," said Rhoda, "we're quite embarrassing everybody, being so
public. Let's settle it afterwards, Peter, when we're alone."

But she too meant to have it as soon as might be after the third time of
asking; it was safer, much safer, so.

"Well," said Miss Clegson, as the ladies rose from the table, "now we're
going to carry Miss Johnson away to tell us all about it; and we'll leave
Mr. Peter to tell you gentlemen _his_ secrets. And after that we'll have
a good round game; but two of the present company can be left out if they
like better to sit