“Yes?” I said. I knew instinctively what was coming, but it was no business of mine to make it any easier for the young bandits who proposed to carry off this treasure. “Well,” he said, “the fact is, you know, she’s—there’s no one so topping; or perhaps you don’t know?” “Why should I be ignorant?” I asked. “Because I’m so old?” “Well, I don’t mean that,” he replied. “But you’re her guardian, aren’t you? And living here as she does. . .” “Oh I see,” I said. “You mean that only strangers can discover how delightful people can be?” “No, not exactly that,” he stammered, “although, as a matter of fact, you know, one does rather take one’s own people for granted. My sister Belle now—to me she’s the stodgiest kind of old thing, but you should see the fellows after her. Like flies. They’re not as keen as I am about Miss Holt, though.” “Then I must suppose,” I said, “that Rose—Miss Holt—is much nicer away from home than she is when she is there.” “Oh no!” he replied, “I didn’t mean that. I’m sure she’s always charming.” “Well, if neither of these is the reason, I am bound,” I said, “to fall back on the theory that I am too old to recognize sweetness when I see it.” He was in a hole now and showed it. I liked him for his confusion. I liked to think that any young man, particularly one who had been through a war so much more destructive of good manners and good morals and honest standards of living than of militarism, should still be capable of embarrassment. “Do you mind,” he asked, “if I smoke?” “Not at all,” I said. “Every one smokes now. Tobacco is the next thing to mother’s milk.” He took a cigarette from a gold case and tapped it. “I’m afraid it’s only a gasper,” he explained. “I’d rather it was a pipe,” I said. “Pipes don’t appeal to me any more,” he replied. “I took to cigarettes in France and I’ve never gone back.” A few whiffs seemed to give him courage. “I came to see you,” he said at last, “because I want to marry Miss Holt.” I was silent for a minute, during which I was taking him all in, and reviewing Rose’s life, and seeing them together, and speculating on the future, and realizing how different this happy-go-lucky youth, with a touch of effrontery and few thoughts for anything but motoring and dancing, was from the husband I had been wishing for her. It is extraordinary what a lot can be thought about in sixty seconds. Meanwhile he puffed his gasper and nursed his little moustache and swung a leg with so much purple sock now exposed that a suspender was visible too. “Do you live about here?” I asked at last. “I don’t seem to remember your face.” “I’m staying with my uncle, Major Wilkinson,” he said. “My name’s Sibthorp.” “And what do you do?” “Well, I’m not doing anything at the moment. I’ve only just been demobbed. I may possibly go back to Oxford. But I’d rather make some money. There’s talk of the mater setting me up as a chicken-farmer. There’s a devil of a lot of eggs wanted.”