"You may if you like; but don't come back with him, as I want five minutes' quiet talk with him." So Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter left the studio, and in a few minutes Charley Potts arrived. As he walked up to Geoffrey and wrung his hand, both men seemed under some little constraint. Geoff spoke first. "I'm glad you're here, Charley. I should have gone up to your place if you hadn't looked in to-day. I have something to tell you, and something to ask of you." "Tell away, old boy; and as for the asking, look upon it as done,--unless it's tin, by the way; and there I'm no good just now." "Charley, I'm going to be married next Thursday to Margaret Dacre--the girl we found fainting in the streets that night of the Titians." Geoff expected some exclamation, but his friend only nodded his head. "She has told me her whole life: insisted upon my hearing it before I said a word to her; made me wait a week after I had asked her to be my wife, on the chance that I should repent; behaved in the noblest way." Geoffrey again paused, and Mr. Potts again nodded. "We shall be married very quietly at the parish-church here; and there will be nobody present but you. I want you to come; will you?" "Will I? Why, old man, we've been like brothers for years; and to think that I'd desert you at a time like this! I--I didn't quite mean that, you know; but if not, why not? You know what I do mean." "Thanks, Charley. One thing more: don't talk about it until after it's over. I'm an awkward subject for chaff, particularly such chaff as this would give rise to. You may tell old Bowker, if you like; but no one else." And Mr. Potts went away without delivering that tremendous philippic with which he had come charged. Perhaps it was his conversation with Miss Til in the drawing-room which had softened his manners and prevented him from being brutal.