"Yes, dear. I am sure I did," said Mrs. Home with gentle complacence. "Well, you dear witch, tell me how you knew." "Oh, Philip, it was easy to see. You never looked at any girl before like that. I used to be afraid you would never marry. You used to say dreadful things, you know, that really frightened me. Even since you were quite a little boy, you thought women were a bother. You used to say they couldn't play games, and were always in the way, and had headaches, and were without any sense of honour." "All quite true in the main," said the misogynous Philip. Mrs. Home held up her hands in protest. "Dear, when have you known me have a headache, or do anything dishonourable?" she asked pertinently. "I always excepted you. And I except Madge. She beat me at croquet the other day, and in the middle of the game volunteered the information that she had not moved the ball she croquetted." "She always would," said his mother gently. "Oh, Philip, good luck to your wooing, my dear!" There was a long pause; a sparrow in a prodigious bustle alighted on the edge of the fountain, and drank as if it had been a traveller straight from Sahara; the wind woke again in the flower-beds and gave a long, fragrant sigh; the sun-blinds of the drawing-room stirred as it wandered by them, and the pale purple petals of a grape-bunch cluster of wisteria fell on the crimson-striped canvas. The exquisiteness of this midsummer moment struck Philip with a sudden pang of delight, none the less keen because the love with which his soul was full was not yet certain or complete: the pause before completion was his. "Thank you, mother," he said at last. "I shall know very soon, I shall ask her while she is here." He got up as he spoke. "I can't sit still any more," he said. "Speaking of it has made me restless. I must go and do something violent. Perhaps I will take your advice and go for a row. They will not be here till nearly seven. Oh, by-the-way, Evelyn Dundas is coming, too. You will have someone to flirt with, mother." "Dear, you say such dreadful things!" said Mrs. Home. "And if you say them while Lady Ellington is here, I shall feel so awkward." "Well, Evelyn proposed to elope with you last time he was here," said Philip. "I think I shall commission him to paint your portrait." "Who wants the picture of an old woman like me?" said Mrs. Home. "But get him to do Madge's." Philip considered this. "That's an idea," he said. "He could paint her divinely. Really, mother--if ah! a big 'if.' Do you know, I'm rather uneasy about Evelyn." "Why? I thought he was getting on so well." "He is as far as painting goes. They think very highly of him. But the moment he gets a couple of hundred pounds he buys a motor-car or something, and next week his watch is in pawn. Now, when you are twenty-five, it is time to stop doing that." "I know," said Mrs. Home. "He is dreadful! Last time he was here he gave me a pearl-brooch that must have cost him fifty pounds."