"That is why you should wait. Come, John--suppose we talk of this in a year?" He looked at the intense young face before him. "Then you--you don't forbid me, sir--I mean I may hope--" he stammered. "The verdict is with Muriel, John. She will know her own mind soon, and when she is home and has been presented, then you two can decide. I am not so old-fashioned as to think a father can do other than advise. If I say 'Good luck' to you, will that suffice for the present?" "Oh, thank you, sir!" cried John, gladly. So ended the overture. It was a phase successfully passed. The young lovers breathed freely again. Time was the enemy now. The summer wore on. There were visits to the Fletchers and to Marsh's. "Mother's another 'ism," said Marsh, meeting him at the station. "They come and go like Dad's pipes. She's a Sunphoner this time--all gladness and love is transmitted on rays of light. To smile is to love. Clouds, which obstruct sunshine, are agglomerations of sin. When you frown you are abetting the devil. Mother carefully cultivates the gladsome wrinkles of the sunphoners. Dad calls it the Cheshire Cat Society." John found her as sweet and gentle as before. Always in her hands there seemed to be flowers, and the birds sang louder in her garden. Were any evenings, anywhere, more restful than those around her lamp? Mr. Marsh came and went from the study. His hair was a little whiter, his belief in the _Nation_ even more unshakable. As for Marsh, was there any one in the world quite like this tall, perverse, quick-spoken humourist? Mrs. Marsh sat and worshipped, her hands ever busy in his service, and John thought he treated her like a fluttered bird, something to be petted and soothed. "It is splendid to watch over your success, John," she confided one evening. "But please don't let success harden you." "Am I hardening?" "No--perhaps not--it's youth changing, I suppose--I would like to keep that first glimpse of you--when Teddie brought you here--so nervous." John laughed happily, and held her hand which, somehow, had found its way into his. "What a silly little woman I am," she whispered. "I think you're a darling," he responded, "and Teddie's a lucky boy." It was good to fall asleep in that little chintz-curtained room, to watch the moon climbing through the elm-tree branches, to hear the owl screech and the church clock strike in the dead of night, or to wake with bird song in the cold freshness of the country morning. Then Teddie would bang about, pyjama-clad with tousled hair, uttering some fantastic epigram, or a new plan for exasperating the conservative-minded. It was he who, one morning in Grafton Street, saw in the shop window of an antique dealer, a small bronze statue labelled "Narcissus listening to Echo." "Scissors!" he cried, clutching his arm. "There's your namesake, minus tailor's trimmings!"