She kept these lurid imaginings strictly to herself, aware that neither Florence nor Mary nor Diana nor Jane nor Queenie would extend a sympathetic hearing to them. As far as that went she was sensible enough, for her imagination, lurid as it was, was right in anticipating a very flat and stern reception for them if she confided them to her sisters. But since she never ran the risk of having them dispersed by homely laughter, her day-dreams became more and more real to her, and at the age of twenty-two she was, in a word, silly enough for anything. Then the amazing thing happened. A real baronet, a concrete, middle-aged, wealthy, delicate baronet who was accustomed to dine at the Non-Commissioned Officers’ mess once or twice in the season, proposed to her, and it appeared that all her imaginings had not been so silly after all. She accepted him without the smallest hesitation, feeling that ‘faith had vanished into sight.’ Besides, her mother was quite firm on the subject. Sir Gilbert Falcon (such was his prodigious name) was a hypochondriac of perfectly amiable disposition, and his Winny-pinny, as he fatuously called her, was at first extremely contented. He treated her like a toy, when he was well enough to pay any attention to her; and in the manner of a little girl with her doll, he loved dressing her up in silks and jewels, with an admiration that was half child-like, half senile, and completely unmanly. It pleased his vanity that he, a little, withered, greenish man, should have secured so young and pretty a wife, and finding that green suited her, gave her his best jade necklace, the beads of which were perfectly matched, and represented years of patient collecting. He gave her also for her lifelong adornment the famous Falcon pearls, which pleased her much more. She wore the jade by day, and the pearls in the evening, and he would totter after her, when he felt well enough, into the Rolls-Royce (for the Rolls-Royce had come true also) and take her to dine at the Savoy. Afterwards, when he had drunk his tonic, which he had brought with him in a little bottle, he often felt sufficiently robust to go on to a revue, where he took a box. There he would sit, with a shawl wrapped around his knees, and hold her hand, and tell her that none of the little ladies on the stage were half so enchanting as his Winny-pinny.