When Lucius paddled his canoe out of the backwater with Betty sitting opposite to him in a flutter of dimples and happiness, there was literally no cloud on his horizon. He had been up at Cambridge now for three weeks and his father had never once given him occasion to wish himself away. Mr. Binney behaved himself irreproachably. In fact, if he had kept himself in the background as he was doing now from the time he had entered the University, Lucius would have had no reason to be ashamed of him at all. Even as it was, the contrast of what Mr. Binney was now and what he had been when he first came up was so great that the relief felt by Lucius almost made up for the distress he had previously undergone. Mr. Binney as a subject for discussion had somewhat lost interest by this time, and Lucius lived much in the same way as he would have done if his father had never come to Cambridge. Mr. Binney, whose nature was elastic, had recovered a little of his self-importance now that he had nothing to fear from outraged officialdom, and was rather inclined to patronise his son, and generally to assume the high parental air with which he had treated him before his own arrival in Cambridge. But Lucius, whose appeal had saved his father from expulsion, took it all in excellent part, and was only too thankful that things were not worse. He could have borne a great deal more and thought nothing of it now that Betty had at last allowed him to put to her the all-important question, and had given him the answer he wanted. He whistled gaily as he walked up to his rooms from the river and thought himself the luckiest fellow in the world. At the entrance to Whewell's Court he met Dizzy. "I've done it, old man," he said with a beaming face. "You're the first person I've told about it." "Then I'm sure I'm extremely flattered," answered Dizzy, "although I haven't the slightest notion what you're talking about." "I'm going to be married, Dizzy," said Lucius. "Will you be my best man?" "Well, I'm going to play racquets at two," said Dizzy. "If you could put it off till to-morrow perhaps I could----" "No, but really, Ben, I asked Betty this morning, and it's all right." "My dear old man," said Dizzy, grasping him warmly by the hand, while a bright smile lit up his ingenuous features, "I couldn't have been better pleased if I'd done it myself!" CHAPTER XVI THIRD TRINITY MAKES A BUMP There never was such a little man as Mr. Binney for getting knocked down flat and picking himself up again as cocky as ever. Lucius's announcement of his engagement to his cousin Betty brought him to his feet as pompous as if he had never been fined by a Proctor or rebuked by a Dean. "I never heard of such a thing," he said indignantly. "Getting engaged to be married at your age! Why, it's ridiculous. I won't have it. That's flat." "What won't you have, father?" asked Lucius. "You can't stop my being engaged to her, you know. That's over and done with."