"I'm not afraid. Charlotte has always approved of me," asserted Christopher cheerfully. "Of course Charlotte will be pleased," put in that young lady's mother, quite seriously. "What nonsense you are talking, Patricia." She got up and offered a transparent excuse to slip away and leave the lovers alone. Patricia, still kneeling by the fire, leant her head against Christopher. "I used to try and make up my mind you would marry Charlotte when she grew up," she said dreamily. "How ingenious of you. Unfortunately, it was my mind, not yours, that was concerned, and that had been made up when Charlotte was in pinafores. Now come and talk business, dear." So at last he told her the news he had been so tardy in delivering, told her the whole story very simply and as impersonally as he could, but Patricia's heart brimmed over with pity for him. She divined more clearly than the men the strength of his hatred for the burden with which he was threatened, and the burden of past memories in which that hatred had its root. In the fulness of her love she set herself the future task of rooting out the resentment for another's sorrows, which she knew must be as poison to his generous soul. At length Christopher, having read in her love the confirmation for which he so childishly longed, took her away to be introduced to Caesar in her new character as his promised wife. She waited for no such introduction whatever, but seated herself on the big hassock by the sofa that was still Christopher's privileged seat and leant her head against the edge of Caesar's cushions, but she failed to find anything to say and Christopher was so occupied in watching her as to forget to speak. "It's taken him a long time to recognise his own privilege, hasn't it, Patricia?" said Caesar, gently putting his hand on hers. "I was getting impatient with him. It was time he grew up." "You aren't disappointed then?" she asked with a little flush of confusion. "Mrs. Sartin will be. She always expects him to marry a duchess at least. She is so insufferably proud of him." "She does not know him so well as we do, that's why." "I'll not stay here to be discussed," remarked Christopher decidedly, "you can pull my character to pieces when I'm away. When did you last see Mrs. Sartin, Patricia?" "Last Thursday. She comes to tea every week with Maria." Maria was Mrs. Sartin's second daughter, midway between Sam and Jim, and was just installed as second lady's-maid to Mrs. Wyatt. "Is Sam more reconciled to her going out?" "Not a bit. You know he wanted to send her to a Young Ladies' Academy in Battersea. I know he'd have done it but for Martha, who has more sense in her fingers than he has in his whole head." "Hadn't Maria anything to say in the matter?" This from Caesar. "No one has much to say when Sam and his mother dispute," said Christopher, shaking his head. "Sam would be a tyrant, Caesar, if he could. He always wants to push people on in his own way."