"Well," I said, "since no practical advice would meet your views, as I suspected, the only thing I can give is a sermon, or address, on the dangers of the new cult of diversion which deprives the character of any intensity, and leave you to draw the right moral. But I'm not going to do that. You are both obviously very weak in what the phrenologists call philo-progenitiveness. If you could only develope that bump the problem would solve itself. That, however, is a counsel of perfection. My advice, then, is this: in the words of an illustrious statesman, cultivate an attitude of expectant hesitancy." Dollie looked very blank. "Put in another way," I said, "wait and see." "Oh, I say," he said, "no chaff!" "But I really mean it," I said. "Honour bright?" he asked. "Absolutely," I said. "Thanks awfully," he replied, shaking my hand. "Tophole. That's a great load off my mind." I was glad to see him go. The bore about the people who ask for advice is that they never tell everything; and it is just the reservations that make the case complex. The second lover was poor Spanton. "How's Nancy?" I asked. His face fell. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I wanted to see you about Nancy. She has broken off our engagement. I had her letter this morning, and of course I went down at once to put the matter right. You see, she has been away on a visit and must have come under some foolish influence. She's a very impressionable girl. I couldn't get her to admit this, but I'm sure it's the case. Nothing that I said was any good. For the moment she is out of her mind, I think. She simply refused to discuss it, merely saying that she had discovered that she did not feel for me as deeply as she ought to if we were to marry. So absurd to talk like that at her age and with her inexperience, when, as I told her, I had deliberately chosen her--picked her out from all the other girls I knew." Luckily he sprang up at this moment and began to pace about, or he would have seen my face.