“My dear,” said Mrs. Closeley Dore to Mrs. Sheraton Forbes, “my dear, I can stand worldliness, but I detest indecency. Only a man with the mind of a Nero could have conceived such an infamous idea. But then he was always gross. My father, you know, would never have him inside the house.” She shuddered. “But, for an old relic of the Roaring Forties to make a degrading suggestion is one thing; for a decently brought up young man and woman to adopt it is quite another. Those two have no excuse. It is the apotheosis of immorality. I don’t pretend I’m not worldly—I am, and I know it. But deliberately to abet one another in debasing one of the Sacraments of the Church——” In a voice shaken with emotion, Mrs. Sheraton Forbes replied with a misquotation from the Solemnization of Matrimony. It was a dreadful business. . . . In the Clubs the affair got the laugh of the season. Virgil Pardoner, who had always been liked, was openly chaffed out of his life and secretly voted ‘a devilish lucky chap.’ As for the deceased, he was declared a fellow of infinite jest, and his scheme for ‘keeping the goods in the family’ boisterously applauded. The sluice-gates of Reminiscence were pulled up, and memories of ‘Old Jimmy Tantamount’ were manufactured and retailed by the hour. In my lady’s chamber Miss Vulliamy was frankly envied. “I don’t mind admitting,” said Margaret Shorthorn, “that I could have done with Virgil. They talk about Sarah’s selling herself. Well, what if she is? We’re all trying to do it. The only difference is that in Sarah’s case the conditions of sale have been announced in the Press. Besides, Virgil’s no monster . . . I only wish to heaven I’d had such a chance.” “I agree,” said Agatha Coldstream. “If I had to face love in a cottage, I’ld as soon face it with Virgil as with most men I know. But Virgil plus half a million. . . .” She raised her black eyes to heaven expressively. “Besides, I like Sarah. And I’ll tell you one thing—her pals won’t be the worse off for her good fortune. Those two’ll give their friends the time of their lives. You see if they don’t.” So much for Society’s reception of the news. The attitude of Lincoln’s Inn Fields was not advertised, but, since John Galbraith Forsyth was a sound judge of character, his opinion may be recorded.