“Well, you see, you didn’t catch a glimpse of me until after you were married,” she railed.  “I was in the Sacred Heart convent, you remember.”

“Ah, that explains the oversight.  I am considered an unusually discriminating person.  Let me see:  I married a Miss Fowler, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Roxbury.  Four years ago, in London, at St. George’s, in Hanover Square, at four o’clock, on a Saturday.  Didn’t they tell you all that?”

“I don’t think they said anything about it being four o’clock.  I’m glad to know the awful details, believe me.  Thanks!  Do you know I decided you were an American the instant I saw you in the door,” he went on, quite irrelevantly.

“How clever of you, Roxbury!”

“Oh, I say, Miss Fowler, I’m not such an ass as I look, really I’m not.  I’m trying to look like—­”

“’Sh!  If you want me to believe you are not the ass you think you look, be careful what you say.  Remember I am not Miss Fowler to you.  I am Constance—­sometimes Connie.  Can you remember that,—­Roxbury?”

He drew a long breath.  “Oh, I say, Connie, I’d much rather be plain Brock to you.”

“Please don’t forget that I am doing this for my sister,—­not for myself, by any manner of means,” she said stiffly.  He flushed painfully, conscious of the rebuke.

“Please overlook my faults for the time being,” he said.  “I’ll do better.  You see, I’ve been rather overcome by the sense of my own importance.  I’m not used to being the head of an establishment.  It has dazed me.  A great many things have happened to me since I left the Gare de l’Est last night.”  He was considerate in not referring to his unhappy mode of travelling.  “For instance, I’ve completely lost my head.”  He might have said hat, but that would have sounded commonplace and earthy.

“One does, you know, when he loses his identity,” she said sympathetically.  “Edith says you are ripping, and all that sort of thing,” she went on hurriedly, in perfect mimicry.  “You come very highly recommended as a brother-in-law.”

“Are you to be with us until the end of the play?”

“Yes.  The Rodneys are my friends, not Edith’s.  Katherine Rodney was in the convent with me.  We see a great deal of each other.  I’m sure you will like her.  Everybody falls dreadfully in love with her.”

“How very amiable of you to permit it,” he protested gallantly.  “I’m sure I shall enjoy falling in love.  Which reminds me that I’ve never had a sister-in-law.  They’re very nice, I’m told.  It’s odd that Medcroft didn’t tell me about you.  Would you mind advancing a bit of general information about yourself—­and, I may say, about my family in general?  It may come handy.”