_Honoria_: "Certainly. Would you mind showing him in here? It will save my ringing for the waiter." Enter Major Armstrong. At the sight of David he flushes and looks fierce. _Honoria_: "So glad you've come, dear Major. I hear mother has had a good nap. I must go to her presently. You know David Vavasour Williams?--Davy! You really _must_ leave out your second name! It gets so fatiguing having to say it every time I introduce you." Armstrong bows stiffly and David, standing with one well-shaped foot in a neat boot on the curb of the fireplace, looks up and returns the bow. _Honoria_: "This won't do. You are two of my dearest friends, and yet you hardly greet one another. I always determined from the age of fifteen onwards I would never pass my life as men and women in a novel do--letting misunderstandings creep on and on where fifty words might settle them. _Army!_ You've often asked me to marry you--or at least so I've understood your broken sentences. I never refused you in so many words. Now I say distinctly 'Yes'--if you'll have me. Only, you know quite well I can't actually marry you whilst mother lies so ill..." Major Armstrong, very red in the face, in a mixture of exultation, sympathy and annoyance that the affairs of his heart are being discussed before a whipper-snapper stranger--says: "_Honoria!_ Do you _mean_ it? Oh..." _Honoria_: "Of course I mean it! And if I drew back you could now have a breach-of-promise-of-marriage action, with David as an important witness. D.V.W.--who by the bye is a cousin of my _greatest friend_--my friend for life, whether you like her--as you ought to do--or not--Vivie Warren.... David is reading for the Bar; and besides being your witness to what I have just said, might--if you deferred your action long enough--be your Counsel.... Now look here," (with a catch in the voice) "you two dear things. My nerves are all to bits.... I haven't slept properly for nights and nights. David, dear, if you _must_ talk any more business before you go down to Wales, you must come and see me to-morrow.... Darling mother! I can't _bear_ the thought you may not live to see my happiness." (David discreetly withdraws without a formal good-bye, and as he goes out and the firelight flickers up, sees Armstrong take Honoria in his arms.) CHAPTER VIII THE BRITISH CHURCH