Two days later came a wire from Rupert asking if he might spend a night with us on his way to Yorkshire. And in the evening he duly arrived. Nobody else was dining with us that night, and our little party at the table was perhaps quieter than usual. After dinner we were going to smoke our pipes in the library with Esther and Molly, when Rupert drew me aside and asked me to take him into the consulting-room. "I want you just to run over me," he said, with his eyes on a dangling stethoscope, "to run over me rather thoroughly." I glanced at him anxiously. But in his evening clothes he seemed even lither and more bronzed than ever. "Feeling bad anywhere?" I inquired. But he shook his head. "Rather fit," he admitted, as he took off his coat and waistcoat. And as I suspected, I could find nothing wrong with him. On the contrary, he appeared to be in the very pink of condition, for all his tropical sojournings. "Good," he said; "and, as a matter of fact, I saw Manson this morning, and West this afternoon, and they both told me the same thing." I began to laugh at him, though he was speaking very seriously. "You're surely not becoming a hypochondriac?" I asked. "No," he said gravely; "I don't think so. But I'm forty-seven, you see. And I want to get married." I was, perhaps, rather taken aback at this, though I scarcely knew why. And he himself appeared to consider the idea as savouring somewhat of presumption. For he blushed a little as he slowly collected his clothes. Somehow we had neither of us thought of him as being a marrying man. Then, as he began to dress himself again, I congratulated him, and asked him if the lady was known to me. He hesitated for a moment, and then smiled. "Yes, I think she is," he said; "though I doubt if you'd consider me much of a husband for her." He filled his pipe thoughtfully. "For though in some ways she seems to me to be rather old for her years--old-fashioned, you know, and womanly, and all that--she's really rather young." He seemed to consider this a difficulty. Then he looked at me with a kind of deprecating straightness. "You'd be giving her," he said, "to a fellow who's old enough to be her father." I suppose that I looked a little surprised. "Yes, I do," he said humbly; "I mean Molly." We sucked our pipes in silence for a minute or two, looking at one another through the tobacco smoke. Then I asked him if he had ever pointed out to Molly her striking lack of modernity. He shook his head. "Hadn't the pluck," he confessed; "but it's so obvious, isn't it?" He glanced at me anxiously. "But you mustn't think I'm against it," he said. "It's so rare nowadays. And I think it's beautiful; and anyway, it's just what I've been wanting all my life." "You'll let me talk to Esther?" I asked presently. "I should like to talk to her myself," he answered, "only I'm such a fool at these things." He lit another match.