ws stiffly and David, standing with one well-shaped foot
in a neat boot on the curb of the fireplace, looks up and returns
the bow.

_Honoria_: "This won't do. You are two of my dearest friends, and
yet you hardly greet one another. I always determined from the age
of fifteen onwards I would never pass my life as men and women in a
novel do--letting misunderstandings creep on and on where fifty
words might settle them. _Army!_ You've often asked me to marry
you--or at least so I've understood your broken sentences. I never
refused you in so many words. Now I say distinctly 'Yes'--if you'll
have me. Only, you know quite well I can't actually marry you whilst
mother lies so ill..."

Major Armstrong, very red in the face, in a mixture of exultation,
sympathy and annoyance that the affairs of his heart are being
discussed before a whipper-snapper stranger--says: "_Honoria!_ Do
you _mean_ it? Oh..."

_Honoria_: "Of course I mean it! And if I drew back you could now
have a breach-of-promise-of-marriage action, with David as an
important witness. D.V.W.--who by the bye is a cousin of my
_greatest friend_--my friend for life, whether you like her--as you
ought to do--or not--Vivie Warren.... David is reading for the Bar;
and besides being your witness to what I have just said, might--if
you deferred your action long enough--be your Counsel.... Now look
here," (with a catch in the voice) "you two dear things. My nerves
are all to bits.... I haven't slept properly for nights and nights.
David, dear, if you _must_ talk any more business before you go down
to Wales, you must come and see me to-morrow.... Darling mother! I
can't _bear_ the thought you may not live to see my happiness."
(David discreetly withdraws without a formal good-bye, and as he
goes out and the firelight flickers up, sees Armstrong take Honoria
in his arms.)

CHAPTER VIII

THE BRITISH CHURCH

David had read hard all through Hilary term with Mr. Stansfield of
the Inner Temple; he had passed examinations brilliantly; he had
solved knotty problems in the legal line for _Fraser and Warren_,
and as already related he had begun to go out into Society. Indeed,
starting from the Rossiters' Thursdays and Praed's studio suppers,
he was being taken up by persons of influence who were pleased to
find him witty, possessed of a charming voice, of quiet but
unassailable manners. Opinions differed as to his good looks. Some
women proclaimed him as adorable, r