And so she got her innings at last: was permitted to toy with Oliver, to display Oliver, to turn him round and round, to blow him as if he had been an egg, and at last, crunching him delicately between her fingers, hand the pieces to a converted Justin to toss into the waste-paper basket. It was a great relief to her. Justin, grunting agreement through a film of smoke, and utterly unaware that he had not always agreed, opined that all the same he must look up Oliver. Would Laura come? Laura didn’t think she would. So Justin went by himself. And as the day was foggy and his boredom, thicker than fog, upon him, he found Married Life, as he stumbled in upon it at five o’clock, sitting on the studio floor, with tea-things and firelight and a frieze of Oliver’s Italian canvases for background, a novel and attractive picture. Married Life was kind to him and gave him a welcome, and many muffins, besides letting him smoke; yet because Married Life had definitely, though quite unobtrusively, another set of delightful manners for a pampered Oliver; because too, excellent wife as she seemed to be making Oliver, there was something in her accent and her voice, a certain obviousness in her red hair (Oliver had been more faithful to Laura than Laura guessed) and because, contradictorily, he rather enjoyed the black challenge of her glances, he found himself reflecting with a new satisfaction upon his own excellent domestic arrangements, on the browner hair and softer eyes of his own Married Life waiting for him in the quiet Brackenhurst future. He came home, less bored, but thoughtful, and, next day, spoke to his mother seriously. He said that surely a year was long enough for Laura to fuss about with a trousseau. He said he hated dilly-dallying in this way. Laura didn’t seem to understand how a man felt. How much longer did she propose to spin out the engagement? Mrs. Cloud thought he had better talk to Laura. He did. He said to her firmly— “Whitsuntide.” “Why, yes, if you like, Justin,” said Laura. And he thought that she need not have taken it quite so calmly. One didn’t get married every day.... It was a big thing.... But Laura didn’t even look at him as she said, “Why, yes, if you like.” He found suddenly that he had no more to say to her. He took up a book, while she sat beside him, staring into the fire and warming her hands. That was a silent afternoon. But when Bellew’s letter arrived, with no apologies, but a counter invitation to Justin, she did not fail him. The long projected expedition with its cameras and its ropes and its collecting boxes was to set forth that spring with or without Justin—but couldn’t Justin go? Could Justin go? Laura saw the look on his face. Foolishly, knowing he would go, she could not bear to hear him say so. She interposed swiftly, smiling at him in the way he liked— “Oh, Justin, how jolly. You’re going, aren’t you? Of course you must go. It’ll be the making of the collection.”