he turned to Sanderson and made some remark
about a house which Sanderson's College, of which he was junior bursar,
was selling to Durham.

Fletcher, the only married man present, mourned inwardly over his own
masculine stupidity. He felt sure that if his wife had been there she
would have gently led Stewart's mind through these paradoxical
matrimonial fancies, to dwell on another picture; a picture of marriage
with a nice girl almost as pretty as Lady Hammerton, a good girl who
shared his tastes, and, above all, who adored him. David Fletcher felt
himself pitiably unequal to the task, although he was as anxious as his
wife was that Stewart should marry Milly. Did not all their friends wish
it? It seemed to them that there could not be a more suitable couple. If
Milly was working so terribly hard to get her First in Greats, it was
largely because Mr. Stewart was one of her tutors and she knew he
thought a good deal of success in the Schools.

There could be no doubt about Milly Flaxman's goodness; in fact, some of
the girls at Ascham complained that it "slopped over." Her clothes were
made on hygienic principles which she treated as a branch of morals, and
she often refused to offer the small change of polite society because it
weighed somewhat light in the scales of truth. But these were foibles
that the young people's friends were sure Ian Stewart would never
notice. As to him, although only four and thirty, he was already a
distinguished man. A scholar, a philosopher, and an archaeologist, he had
also imagination and a sense of style. He had written a brilliant book
on Greek life at a particular period, which had brought him a reputation
among the learned and also found readers in the educated public. His
disposition was sweet, his character unusually high, judged even by the
standard of the academic world, which has a higher standard than most.
Obviously he would make an excellent husband; and equally obviously, as
he had no near relations and his health was delicate, it would be a
capital thing for him to have a home of his own and a devoted wife to
look after him. Their income would be small, but not smaller than that
of most young couples in Oxford, who contrived, nevertheless, to live
refined and pleasant lives and to be well-considered in a society where
money positively did not count.

But if Fletcher did not succeed in forwarding this matrimonial scheme in
the dining-room, his wife succeeded no better when