"You mean it's improper for me to have Mr Lambert staying here as a guest?" "Improper was not the word I used." "Oh, nonsense! you meant it. Well, I think I am the best judge of my own propriety, and I see nothing improper in the transaction. My aunt is here, Lulu Morgan is here, you are here, Professor Wilson is here, there's a poet coming to-morrow--I suppose that's improper too. I do wish you would be sensible; besides, Mr Lambert is not a married man, he is a widower." "Does he know that you are engaged?" "Sure, I don't know. I don't go about with a placard with 'I am engaged' written on it on my back. Why do you ask?" "Well--um--if a stranger had been here at tea to-day he would scarcely have thought that the engaged couple----" "Go on, this is delightful; it's absolutely bank-holidayish--the engaged couple--go on." "Were you and I." "You mean you and _me_?" "Yes." "The behaviour of 'engaged couples' in decent society is, I believe, pretty much the same as our behaviour has been, and I hope will be. How would you have it? Would you like to walk about, I clinging to your arm, and you playing a mouth-organ? Ought we to exchange hats with each other? Shall I call you Choly and put ice down your neck at dinner? Ought we to hire a brake and go on a bean feast? I wish you would instruct me. I hate to appear _gauche_, and I hate not to do the correct thing." "Vulgarity is always painful to me," said Mr Bevan, "but senseless vulgarity is doubly so." "Thanks, your compliments are charming." "I was not complimenting you, I simply----" "I know, simply hinting that I was senseless and vulgar." "I never----" "I know. Shall we change the subject--what's all this?" "Please come and help us," said Miss Morgan, coming up. "We've got the astronomical telescope, and we can't make head or tail of it." Miss Pursehouse rose and approached the group surrounding an astronomical telescope that stood on the lawn. It was trained on the moon, and Hamilton-Cox, with a hand over one eye and the other eye at the eyepiece, was making an observation. "Sometimes I can see stars, and sometimes nothing. I can't see the moon at all." "Shut the other eye," said Lambert. "Perhaps," said Miss Pursehouse, "if you remove the cap from the telescope you will be able to see better. A very simple thing sometimes cures blindness." CHAPTER IV TIC-DOULOUREUX Mr Bevan found no chance for a _tête-à-tête_ with his _fiancée_ again that night, perhaps because he did not seek one; he was not in the humour for love-making. He felt--to use the good old nursery term that applies so often, so very often, to grown-ups--"fractious." He retired to his bedroom at half-past eleven, and was sitting with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, staring at the wood-fire brightly burning in his grate, when a knock came to the door and Lambert appeared. "I just dropped in to say good-night. Am I disturbing you?" "Not a bit; sit down and have a cigarette."