Ariadne and I have called him "Pure Peter" ever since, but he is not bad, really. It is a mercy when one's friends show a little consideration in their marriage, and one mustn't be too particular, for the world is full of bounders one might have got, and had to be civil to. Peter Ball talks about "Vickings" and keeps a chart of the weather, but except for fussy ways like that, he is quite a gentleman. CHAPTER XVII Ariadne got fatter at Rattenraw, which is humiliating enough to a girl in her position. I can't say that she kept that up at all well, beyond looking sad, sometimes when she wasn't thinking, or at meals. She has to pretend to be _distraite_, for really she is very all there, and likes her dinner. Peter Ball, carving the roast red beef, holds his knife up in the air to tease her, and says to her, when she won't answer his question whether she wants some more?--"Thinking of the old 'un, what?" He doesn't know how near the truth he is, except in age. He knows nothing of Ariadne's affairs, he prefers not to know, but takes her word for it that she has a secret sorrow connected with a member of his sex. Jane Emerson Tree doesn't take any notice of Ariadne or of me either; she is put out at not being allowed to say rude things about us. She is a free-born American citizen. Christina has made Ariadne rip the leather patch off the shoulder of the waist Jane Emerson objected to, and has lent her a common straw sailor hat, which suits her better than the billycock. A sailor hat, you see, isn't a hat, it is a tile, and so can't either become or unbecome.