Lounging along the country lanes, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, Stanor told himself that it was a disappointing old world: a fellow always imagined that when he got engaged he would have the time of his life; in books a fellow was represented as walking upon air, in a condition of rapture too intense for belief--it was disappointing to find his own experience fall so short of the ideal! Sweet little Pixie, of course, was a beguiling creature. Stanor would not admit any shortcomings in his _fiancee_, but he did allow himself to wonder tentatively if he had spoken too soon: if she were not, perhaps, a trifle young to understand the meaning of the new claim. The daily interviews which he had been vouchsafed had been full of interest and charm, but they had not succeeded in stifling the doubt which had marred the first minutes of acceptance, for alas! it was when Pixie was the most affectionate that her lover was most acutely conscious of the subtle want. And then, as if there was not already enough worry and trouble, there was the Runkle. ... The Runkle would be bound to put in his oar! Stanor had delayed sending word of his engagement to the man who stood to him in the place of a father, silencing his conscience by the assertion that there was yet nothing to announce. Until Pixie's guardians came down from their present unnatural position, there might be an understanding, but there could not be said to be a formal engagement. It was Pixie herself who finally forced him to dispatch the news. It was Stanor's first experience of arguing a point with a woman, and a most confusing experience he found it. Pixie invariably agreed with every separate argument as he advanced it, saw eye to eye with him on each separate point, sympathised warmly with his scruples, and then at the very moment when she was expected to say "yes" to the final decision, said "no," and stuck to it with conviction. Questioned as to the reason of such inconsistency, she had only one excuse to plead, and she pled it so often and with such insistence that it seemed easier to give in than to continue the argument. "Yes, but he's lame!" came back automatically as the answer to every remonstrance, till Stanor shrugged his shoulders and sat down to write his letter. Pixie _was_ indeed, as the family had it, "the soft-heartedest creature!" He loved her for it, but none the less depression seized him anew. Now there would be the Runkle to tackle! More arguments! More objections! A fellow ought to be jolly happy when he was married, to make up for all the fuss and agitation which went before...