"I have forgotten what was exactly the last observation of the lamented Julius Caesar," Mr. Charteris leisurely observed,--"though I remember that at the time it impressed me as being uncommonly appropriate--But to get back: do you not see that this clause ought to come here, at the end of the sentence? And, child, on all my ancient bended knees, I implore you to remember that 'genuine' does not mean the same thing as 'real'...." 7 Meanwhile he and Bettie got on together a deal better than I had ever anticipated. Charteris, though, received my confidence far too lightly. "You are going to marry her! Why, naturally! Ever since I encountered you, you have been 'going to marry' somebody or other. It is odd I should have written about the Foolish Prince so long before I knew you. But then, _I_ helped to mould you--a little--" And resolutely Bettie said the most complimentary things about him. But I trapped her once. "Still," I observed, when he had gone, and she had finished telling me how delightful Mr. Charteris was, "still he shan't ever come to _our_ house, shall he?" "Why, of course not!" said Bettie, who was meditating upon some cosmic question which required immediate attention. And then she grew very angry and said, "Oh, you _dog!_" and threw a sofa-cushion at me. "I hate that wizened man," she presently volunteered, "more bitterly than I do any person on earth. For it was he who taught you to adopt infancy as a profession. He robbed me. And Setebos permitted it. And now you are just a man I am going to marry--Oh, well!" said Bettie, more sprightlily, "I was getting on, and you are rather a dear even in that capacity. Only I wonder what _becomes_ of all the first choices?" "They must keep them for us somewhere, Bettie dear. And that is probably the explanation of everything." And a hand had snuggled into mine. "You do understand without having to have it all spelt out for you. And that's a comfort, too. But, oh," said Bettie, "what a wasteful Setebos it is!" 29. _He Allows the Merits of Imperfection_ I was quite contented now and assured as to the future. I foreknew the future would be tranquil and lacking in any particular excitement, and I had already ceded, in anticipation, the last tittle of mastery over my own actions; but Bettie would keep me to the mark, would wring--not painlessly perhaps--from Robert Townsend the very best there was in him; and it would be this best which, unalloyed, would endure, in what I wrote. I had never imagined that, for the ore, smelting was an agreeable process; so I shrugged, and faced my future contentedly. One day I said, "To-morrow I must have holiday. There are certain things that need burying, Bettie dear, and--it is just the funeral of my youth I want to go to."