"I met him first at a croquet party at Aldermaston Park. I saw _at once_ he was struck with me.... However, we won’t go over the old argument again which we talked out that day at Silchester.... D’you remember? My ankles were so bitten by harvest-bugs after sitting on those mounds, _I_ shan’t forget!..." (meditates).... "I’m much happier than if I had married you.... My dear, that would _never_ have done.... But that need not prevent our being the _best_ of friends, the most attached of cousins.... It’s a bore having a confinement in the Jubilee year.... I’d meant to rival Suzanne Feenix in my entertainments.... But if I give Silchester a boy, he will refuse me _nothing_.... And I mean, as soon as I’m up and about again, to push him on. He’s rich—those Staffordshire mines and potteries. He’s got _lots_ of ability, but he’s too fond of leisure and isn’t quite ambitious enough. Complains of being tired.... He’s only 57 ... but he much prefers spending the evening at home and reading history and memoirs. Still, if Lord Wiltshire gets overworked at the Foreign Office, Francis simply _must_ succeed him. He knows everything about foreign policy from A to Z, after serving so many years in Vienna and Rome.... Well, dear old boy, this is _really_ good-bye. Make good out there, and don’t make a fool of yourself with some grass widow going out, or some fair missionaryess.... I suppose some of them _are_ fit to look at? ... Play up to the permanencies, and try to write some dispatch that’ll interest Lord Wiltshire. Then Silchester may get a chance of putting his oar in and have you shifted to a better post and a more healthy one. After that _I’ll_ take a hand and marry you to some nice girl with a little money.... I wonder whether you’ll feel lonely out there? But men never are, so long as they can move about and get some shooting ... which reminds me I want a _lot_ more leopard skins. Don’t mount them: I like to choose my own colours——" (Enter Lady Silchester’s maid.) _Maid_: "My lady, before his lordship went out he said I was to remind your ladyship about going to bed early, so I ventured..." "Quite right, Sophie.... I’ll come up in one minute." (Exit maid.) "By the bye, Roger, I ought to ask after the other cousins. How’s Maud?" (Roger intimates that good old Maud’s all right.) "Maud is an excellent creature; I’ve always said so, though in a sort of tight-lipped way she’s never approved of me. Because she’s lost her own complexion in field sports and parish work Maud suspects all other young women of powdering and painting. And Geoffrey?" "Geoffrey’s ship is coming back in May and then he ought to get some leave; and to save your time, I might mention that Maurice will probably be called to the bar in the autumn if he satisfies the Benchers; and as to father, he’s more gone over to Rome than ever...." "You mean Silchester?"