I admitted he did, though I could not see what on earth that had to do with the question. "Still, I couldn't share it with Fay unless she were my wife," I added. Annabel looked puzzled. "Of course not. Whoever suggested such a thing?" "I thought you did." "Good gracious, no! such an absurd idea never entered my head. I was only thinking about your marrying Fay." "I spoke to Arthur on the matter, as he is Fay's guardian," I continued, "and also my own parish priest." "It was quite right to consult him as Fay's guardian, but I do not see what being a parish priest, as you call it, has to do with the question. And I must say I very much hope, Reggie, that you did not use that ridiculous expression in speaking to Arthur. He is too much inclined to Romanism as it is, and expressions like that are apt to give him false and popish notions of his own importance." "And he said," I went on, "that I ought to tell Fay that I love her, and to let the decision of accepting or refusing me lie with her." "What ridiculous advice! Of course she would accept you at once." Again I was grateful to Annabel for seeing my darling as I saw her. She evidently realised, as I did, that Fay was far too unselfish to consider her own happiness in comparison with mine. If Fay knew I loved her, she would accept me, whatever the sacrifice to herself. "Then you think Arthur was wrong?" I asked. "Absolutely. He nearly always is when he acts or speaks on his own judgment, though in other respects he is a most excellent man, and one for whom I have the greatest regard. But he is like you, Reggie, in requiring some one at his elbow to give him good advice, though I do not think he is always as ready as you are to follow it." My heart felt like lead. "And you think I am not justified in asking a girl of eighteen to marry me?" "Certainly not. How can there be any real and satisfactory companionship between a girl of that age and a man of yours!" I made one final appeal for happiness. "Not even if they love each other very much?" "I don't see what that has to do with it. Parents love their children very much, but that doesn't prevent them from looking at things from the different points of view of their different generations. And it is natural that they should. I am sure I loved papa very much, but we did not see eye to eye in heaps of things, because the ideas of his generation were quite different from the ideas of ours. He was very narrow in some things. But differences which are quite allowable between parents and children seem to me to be unnatural between a husband and wife, and even more aggravating."