“I,” said Mr. Lapwing absently, “can tell you a much better story than that. Any day.” Valentine flushed. “I didn’t tell you about this, sir, so that you should make a guy of me.” Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Keep your hair on. When I said that I could tell you a much better story than yours, I meant, naturally, that my story is complete, whereas yours, you will agree, is as yet far from complete.” Valentine muttered something about his being quite complete enough for him, but all Mr. Lapwing said sharply was: “Here, no more of that brandy! That brandy is too good to swim in. But if you want to get drunk, I will ring for some whisky.” “I don’t want to get drunk,” snapped Valentine. “Good boy!” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely, and continued pacing up and down the dim, long room, while Valentine sat still and thought of his past life and found it rotten. Suddenly Mr. Lapwing said, in that irritatingly exact way of his which was never quite exact: “You, Valentine, are twenty-nine years old. Valerest is twenty-two----” “Four,” said Valentine. “Very well. And you have been married just over three years----” “Nearly five,” sighed Valentine. “Very well. You, Valentine, want a child. Valerest, however, does not want a child just yet. Your argument is a sound one: that if parents wait too long before their children are born, by the time the children grow up the parents will be too old to share any of their interests and pleasures----” “That’s right,” said Valentine sourly. “Valerest and I will be a pair of old dodderers by the time they’re of age.” “Exactly. A very sound argument. Whereas Valerest----” Valentine snapped: “She doesn’t even trouble to argue. She just sits and grins!” “Exactly. She is much too deeply in the wrong to argue. When nations are too deeply in the wrong to argue they call on God and go to war. When women are too deeply in the wrong to argue they sit and grin. And I daresay that the way you put your arguments gives Valerest plenty to sit and grin about.” “My God,” said Valentine, “don’t I try to be reasonable!” “Listen,” said Mr. Lapwing, and then he told Valentine that he had been married twice. Valentine was amazed. He had not known that. Mr. Lapwing said: “I was very young when I married my first wife. Even younger than you, although even then I knew a good brandy from a poor one. And I was very much in love. As, if you will not think an old man too ridiculous, I am still. Of course, she is dead now.” Valentine was listening with only half a mind. He had still to get over his surprise that his guardian had been married twice. There are some men who look as though they simply could not have been married twice. They look as though one marriage would be, or had been, a very considerable feat for them. Mr. Lapwing looked decidedly like that: he looked, if you like, a widower: but decidedly not like a widower multiplied by two----