"He kissed me. _That_ wasn't funny." "The putrid old sinner. If he _wasn't_ so old I'd wring his neck for him." "No, no. That's all wrong. It's not the way we agreed to take him. We'd think it funny enough if he'd done it to somebody else. It's pure accident that it's me." "No doubt that's the proper philosophic view. I wonder whether Mrs. Levitt takes it." "Ralph--it wasn't a bit like his Mrs. Levitt stunt. The awful thing was he really meant it. He'd planned it all out. We were to go off together to the Riviera, and he was to wear his canary waistcoat." "Did he say that?" "No. But you could see he thought it. And he was going to get Fanny to divorce him." "Good God! He went as far as that?" "As far as that. He was so cocksure, you see. I'm afraid it's been a bit of a shock to him." "Well, it's a thundering good thing I've got a job at last." "_Have_ you?" "Yes. We can get married the day after tomorrow if we like. Blackadder's given me the editorship of the _New Review_." "No? Oh, Ralph, how topping." "That's what I ran up to Oxford for, to see him and settle everything. It's a fairly decent screw. The thing's got no end of hacking, and it's up to me to make it last." "I say--Fanny'll he pleased." As they were talking about it, the landlady of the White Hart came in to tell them that Mrs. Waddington was downstairs and wanted to speak to Miss Madden. "All right," Ralph said. "Show Mrs. Waddington up. I'll clear out." "Oh, Ralph, what am I to say to her?" "Tell her the truth, if she wants it. She won't mind." "She will--frightfully." "Not so frightfully as you think." "That's what _he_ said." "Well, he's right there, the old beast." 5 "Barbara _dear_," said Fanny when they were alone together, "what on earth has happened?" "Oh, nothing. We just had a bit of a tiff, that's all." "About Ralph? He told me it was Ralph." "You might say it was Ralph. He came into it." "Into what?" "Oh, the general situation." "Nonsense. Horatio was making love to you. I could see by his face.... You needn't mind telling me straight out I've seen it coming." "Since when?" "I don't know. It must have begun long before I saw it." "How long do you think?" "Oh, before Mrs. Levitt." "Mrs. Levitt?" "She may have been only a safety valve. That's why I made him adopt you. I thought it would stop it. In common decency. But it seems it only brought it to a head." "No. It was his canary waistcoat did that, Fanny." The ghost of dead mirth rose up in Fanny's eyes. "You're muddling cause and effect, my dear. He wasn't in love because he bought the waistcoat. He bought the waistcoat because he was in love. And those other things--the romantic pyjamas--because he thought they'd make him look younger." "Well then," said Barbara, "it was a vicious circle. The waistcoat put it into his head that afternoon." "It doesn't much matter how it happened."