gagements, and she
could by no means regard Eustace as immune.

"Do you suppose they will be happy?" she asked.

"Eh? Who?" said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just
finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his
last remark, and Jane's thoughts had flitted back to the subject that
usually occupied them.

"Billie and Bream Mortimer."

"Oh!" said Eustace. "Yes, I suppose so."

"She's a delightful girl."

"Yes," said Eustace without much animation.

"And, of course, it's nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It
doesn't often happen that way."

"No. People's people generally want people to marry people people don't
want to marry," said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which
from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of
every country.

"I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?"
said Jane casually.

"Mother doesn't want me to marry anybody," said Eustace with gloom. It
was another obstacle to his romance.

"What, never?"

"No."

"Why ever not?"

"As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has
to clear out. Silly business!"

"Well, you wouldn't let your mother stand in the way if you ever really
fell in love?" said Jane.

"It isn't so much a question of _letting_ her stand in the way. The
tough job would be preventing her. You've never met my mother!"

"No, I'm looking forward to it!"

"You're looking forward...!" Eustace eyed her with honest amazement.

"But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your
mind to marry somebody."

"What could she do? Why, there isn't anything she wouldn't do. Why,
once...." Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to
tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to
reveal.

"Once--...?" said Jane.

"Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I--I was
going out to lunch with a man, and--and--" Eustace was not a ready
improvisator--"and she didn't want me to go, so she stole all my
trousers!"

Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite
jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard.
That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom
she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the
wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance
which it had never had be