"Oh, _Mr._ Magnet!" said Marjorie--his eye so obviously invited her to say something. Mr. Pope tried a nebulous joke about "groaning boards of Frisky Hanger," and only Mr. Wintersloan restrained his astonishment and admiration. "You could have got those chaps in livery," he said--unheeded. The lunch was as a matter of fact his idea; he had refused to come unless it was provided, and he had somehow counted on blue coats, brass buttons, and yellow waistcoats--but everybody else of course ascribed the whole invention to Mr. Magnet. "Well," said Mr. Pope with a fine air of epigram, "the only thing I can say is--to eat it," and prepared to sit down. "Melon," cried Mr. Magnet to the waiters, "we'll begin with the melon. Have you ever tried melon with pepper and salt, Mrs. Pope?" "You put salt in everything," admired Mr. Pope. "Salt from those attics of yours--Attic salt." "Or there's ginger!" said Mr. Magnet, after a whisper from the waiter. Mr. Pope said something classical about "ginger hot in the mouth." "Some of these days," said Mr. Wintersloan, "when I have exhausted all other sensations, I mean to try melon and mustard." Rom made a wonderful face at him. "I can think of worse things than that," said Mr. Wintersloan with a hard brightness. "Not till after lunch, Mr. Wintersloan!" said Rom heartily. "The claret cup's all right for Theodore, Mrs. Pope," said Magnet. "It's a special twelve year old brand." (He thought of everything!) "Mummy," said Mr. Pope. "You'd better carve this pie, I think." "I want very much," said Mr. Magnet in Marjorie's ear and very confidentially, "to show you the view from the church tower. I think--it will appeal to you." "Rom!" said Theodore, uncontrollably, in a tremendous stage whisper. "There's peaches!... _There!_ on the hamper!" "Champagne, m'am?" said the waiter suddenly in Mrs. Pope's ear, wiping ice-water from the bottle. (But what could it have cost him?) § 13 Marjorie would have preferred that Mr. Magnet should not have decided with such relentless determination to make his second proposal on the church tower. His purpose was luminously clear to her from the beginning of lunch onward, and she could feel her nerves going under the strain of that long expectation. She tried to pull herself together, tried not to think about it, tried to be amused by the high spirits and nonsense of Mr. Wintersloan and Syd and Rom and Theodore; but Mr. Magnet was very pervasive, and her mother didn't ever look at her, looked past her and away from her and all round her, in a profoundly observant manner. Marjorie felt chiefly anxious to get to the top of that predestinate tower and have the whole thing over, and it was with a start that she was just able to prevent one of the assiduous waiters filling her glass with champagne for the third time.