“Well,” said Roger, “I was telling you how I got Jesus.  I was going along Margate High Street, and I saw a crowd, and I heard a band playing.  I didn’t take any particular notice of it and I was going to pass it by—­think of it, mother, I was going to pass it by!—­when the band stopped and a most beautiful voice started singing.  It was Poppy.  Oh, mother, you must hear Poppy sing some day.  She has such a wonderful voice.  It’s a very rich contralto.  Before she was saved she sang on a pier.  Well, I got into the crowd, and presently I got close and I saw her.”  A dreadful coyness came on him, and he turned to Poppy and, it was plain to all of them, squeezed her hand under the table.  She looked straight in front of her with the dumb malignity of a hobbled mule that is being teased.  “Well, I knew at once.  I’ve often envied you and mother for going to Spain and South America, and wondered if the ladies were really like what you see in pictures.  All big and dark and handsome, but when Poppy came along I saw I didn’t have to go abroad for that!  And you know, mother, Poppy is Spanish—­half.  Her name’s Poppy Alicante.  Her mother was English, but she married a Spanish gentleman, of very good family he was.  In fact, he was a real don, wasn’t he, Poppy?  But he died when she was a baby, and as he’d been tricked out of his inheritance by a wicked uncle, there wasn’t much money about, so Poppy’s mother married again, to a gentleman connected with the Navy, who lives just the other side of the river from over here.  Funny, isn’t it?  But it was a very godless home, and they behaved disgracefully to Poppy, when a rich man who saw her on the road when he was riding along in his motor-car wanted to marry her, and she refused because she didn’t love him.  They were so cruel to her that she had to leave home and earn her living, though she never expected to.  But she didn’t like mixing with rough people, so as she’d always had Jesus she joined the Army.  And that’s how we met.”

After a pause Marion said, speaking fatuously in order to avoid the appearance of irony:  “You’re quite a romantic bride, Poppy.”

The woman in uniform bit into her toast and swallowed it unchewed.

“Well, I knew at once I’d met the one woman, as they say, and I hung about just to see if I couldn’t see more of her.  And that’s how I got Jesus.  She brought me to Him.  Mother, mother,” he cried, in a sudden pale, febrile passion, “there’s few have such a blessed beginning to their marriage!  We ought to be very happy, oughtn’t we?”

“Yes, Roger,” she answered him.  “You’ll be very happy—­a husband that any woman would be proud of.”