"No, only one. A man I’m going to marry. Rather soon, too," said Patrine calmly, and put her cigarette into her mouth again. "PAT!" Margot was staring at her blankly. "Well, my dinkie?" "Isn’t this frightfully previous?" Patrine removed the cigarette to say: "It depends on how you look at things." "But—when did you meet?" "In Paris." "Do I know him?" "No, luckily for me!" Margot’s small, amazed face dimpled a little at the compliment. "Is he nice?" "I think so!" "In Our Set?" "I don’t think so! He’s a Flying Man by profession. Now you know nearly as much as I do," said Patrine. "And I’ve to be getting back to Harley Street." She rose from the sofa, towering over her small, indignant friend. "You’re not going out of this room until you tell me the rest of it! What is his name, and when did—it—come off?" "His name is Alan—and he only asked me on Wednesday, when he came to Harley Street. He has called every day since that horrible 18th of July, but this time he came to bring"—Patrine choked a little—"Bawne’s Scout staff and smasher. They had been forgotten in the dressing-shed at the Flying School. Lynette was too ill to go down to receive them. I had to instead—and the sight of them broke me up." "I—see!" "And," Patrine went on, "he—Alan—was being sympathetic, when Uncle Owen came in." "My hat!" Margot sat up, her small face alight and sparkling. "The Doctor-man with the chin and eyebrows! Did he give you unlimited wigging or relent and bless you like the heavy uncle in a proper French Comedy?" "He saw how things were between us. He wasn’t astonished. He was very kind. He is always kind!" said Patrine, swallowing. "If I really believed God were as good as Uncle Owen, I shouldn’t be afraid to die." "He makes me feel like an earwig under a steam-roller," affirmed Margot. "And the charming aunt. Does she cotton to the engagement?" "Lynette is not, for the present, to be told. I asked that. It seems so cruel to be happy when she is so broken-hearted." "Umps! Then—Irma and your gay and giddy mater? How do they take it?" "They haven’t been asked to take it any way." "Oh well! Love is good while it lasts," Kittums said from the summit of a pedestal of experience, "but if I could change back to Margot St. John again——" "You wouldn’t!" "Wouldn’t I, that’s all! This horror that November brings—that’s coming every day closer! ... Pat—I haven’t told Franky yet, that’s to be got over! But I’ve definitely settled to go to that Institute in Berlin where women can have babies without knowing anything about it—under—Bother! I never can remember the name of that drug!" Patrine sat up. Her face was curiously expressionless. She said, crushing out the last spark of her cigarette-end against the face of a Chinaman on the lacquer ash-tray that occupied a little stand beside the sofa with the silver Sobranie box: