“There’s no time like the present,” began the host, “if a thing has to be done.”  He repeated this strange and embarrassing introductory remark, and then spent some time in clearing his throat and blowing his nose, and trying to wipe up the wine he was shaking over.  When the fidgets had seized upon the whole company, he rushed his fence.  “Ahem!  I must ask you, my friends, to fill your glasses in honour of an event —­an event—­that has just transpired in our midst—­that—­that I am sure will interest you all—­that—­in short, my dear daughter Deborah —­and the man of her choice—­who knows, I hope, what a lucky dog he is—­”

“He does!” Claud interjected; and there was eager dumb-show all round the table, everyone—­again excepting Guthrie—­leaning forward to cast wreathed smiles at the seated couple.  “I have given my consent,” said Mr Pennycuick—­“I have given my consent.  My daughter shall be happy in her own way—­and I hope he’ll see to it that she gets all she bargains for.  He is the son of my oldest friend, a man that was better than a brother to me—­the whitest, straightest—­But there’s no words to say what he was.  Only, the son of such a man—­ anybody with Billy Dalzell’s blood in him—­ought to be—­if he isn’t—­”

“He is!” sang Deb, in her rich, ringing voice.  “Oh, please, don’t say any more, father!”

“Well, my dear, I know I am no hand at speech-making, but I can wish you luck, both of you, and I do.  And I want our friends here—­old friends of the family—­to do the same.  Good wishes mayn’t bring good fortune, but for all we know they may do something towards it; and anyway, she may as well have all her chances.  Ladies and gentlemen, long life and happiness to Deborah Pennycuick and her husband that is to be!”

A general turmoil broke out, glass-clinkings, cheers, handshakings; kissings, with a sob or two from the overwrought.  And Guthrie, with no heart upon his sleeve, bowed and drank with the rest.  When the demonstration was over, and the company back in its chairs, Dalzell was left standing.  His bride-elect sat beside him, her elbow on the table, her face shaded by her hand.

“On behalf of my dear wife that is to be,” said Claud, with a quiet mastery of himself that was in striking contrast to the old man’s agitation, “and as a grateful duty of my own, I beg to thank you all, and especially Mr Pennycuick, for this great kindness—­for your generous sympathy with us in our present happiness.  Mr Pennycuick seems to have a doubt—­natural to anyone in the circumstances, but inevitable in a father—­the father of such a daughter—­as to my being qualified to appreciate the gift he has just bestowed upon me; I can assure him, and all of you, that I am overwhelmed with the sense of my good fortune, and of my unworthiness of it.  I am unworthy—­I admit it; but it shall be the business of my life to correct that fault—­if it is a fault, and not merely a misfortune that I cannot help.