austerity of the place permitted and related a non-drawing-room story which was current at my preparatory school—­and that in the library I ran into an equally desolate, though even less familiar Archdeacon, who seized me, like the Ancient Mariner, and never let me go until he had impressed upon my mind the name and address of the only man in London who could cut clerical gaiters.  But the simple child of sugar would have his way.  There was but one Valhalla in London, and it was built by Decimus Burton.

After that we joined the ladies for an unimportant half hour or so, and then Barbara and I took our leave.  As we were motoring home—­we live some thirty miles out of London—­we discussed the dinner party, according to the way of married folks, home-bound after a feast, and I mentioned the trivial incident of Adrian and the broken glass.  Why should his face have been so haggard when he had everything to make him happy?

“He was thinking of Mr. Jornicroft’s previous insulting behaviour.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me,” said Barbara.

“I never knew Adrian to be seriously vindictive,” said I.

“It strikes me, my dear,” replied Barbara, taking my hand, “that you are an old ignoramus.”

And this from a woman who actively glories in not knowing how many “r’s” there are in “harassed.”

She nestled up to me.  “We’re not going abroad in August, are we?”

“What?” I cried, “leave the English country during the only part of the year that is not ‘deformed with dripping rains or withered by a frost’?  Certainly not.”

“But we did last year, and the year before.”

“Pure accident.  The year before, Susan was recovering from the measles and you had some pretty frocks which you thought would look lovely at Dinard.  And last year you also had some frocks and insisted that Houlgate was the only place where Susan could avoid being stricken down by scarlet-fever.”

“Anyhow,” said my wife, “we’re not going away this year, for I’ve fixed up with Doria and Adrian to spend August at Northlands.”

“Why didn’t you tell me so at once?  Why did you ask me whether we were going away?”

“Because I knew we weren’t,” she answered.

In putting two questions at the same time, I blundered.  The first was a poser and might have elicited some interesting revelation of feminine mental process.  In forlorn hope I repeated it.

“Why, I’ve told you, stupid,” said Barbara.  “You’ve no objection to their coming, have you?”

“Good Lord, no.  I’m delighted.”

“From the way you’ve argued, any one would have thought you didn’t want them.”

Outraged by the illogic, I gasped; but she broke into a laugh.

“You silly old Hilary,” she said.  “Don’t you see that Doria must get her trousseau together and Adrian must find a house or a flat, that has to be decorated and furnished, and the poor child hasn’t a mother or any sensible woman in the world to look after her but me?”