nplace statement of a fact. There was a moment of stupefied
silence. Pasquale who had just struck a match to light a cigarette
stared at me and let the flame burn his fingers. I stared at Carlotta,
speechless. The colossal impudence of it!

"I am sorry to contradict you," said I, at last, with some acidity, "but
you are going to do no such thing."

"I am not going to marry you?"

"Certainly not."

"Oh!" said Carlotta, in a tone of disappointment.

Pasquale rose, brought his heels together, put his hand on his heart and
made her a low bow.

"Will you have me instead of this stray bit of Stonehenge?"

"Very well," said Carlotta.

I seized Pasquale by the arm. "For goodness sake, don't jest with her!
She has about as much sense of humour as a prehistoric cave-dweller.
She thinks you have made her a serious offer of marriage." He made her
another bow.

"You hear what Sir Granite says? He forbids our union. If I married you
without his consent, he would flay me alive, dip me in boiling oil and
read me aloud his History of Renaissance Morals. So I'm afraid it is no
good."

"Then I mustn't marry him either?" asked Carlotta, looking at me.

"No!" I cried, "you are not going to marry anybody. You seem to have
hymenomania. People don't marry in this casual way in England. They
think over it for a couple of years and then they come together in a
sober, God-fearing, respectable manner."

"They marry at leisure and repent in haste," interposed Pasquale.

"Precisely," said I.

"What we call a marriage-bed repentance," said Pasquale.

"I told you this poor child had no sense of humour," I objected.

"You might as well kill yourself as marry without it."

"You are not going to marry anybody, Carlotta," said I, "until you can
see a joke."

"What is a joke?" inquired Carlotta.

"Mr. Pasquale asked you to marry him. He didn't mean it. That was a
joke. It was enormously funny, and you should have laughed."

"Then I must laugh when any one asks me to marry him?"

"As loud as you can," said I.

"You are so strange in England," sighed Carlotta.

I smiled, for I did not want to make her unhappy, and I spoke to her
intelligibly.

"Well, well, when you have quite learned all the English ways, I'll try
and find you a nice husband. Now you had better go to bed."

She retired, quite consoled. When the door closed behind her, Pasquale
shook his head at me.

"Wasted! Criminally wasted!"

"What?"

"That," he answe