He started up, lit his long pipe, and fell to pacing the room with agitated strides. Was he doing wisely? Matrimony, he had sometimes told his friends, is like a dip in the sea; the wise man takes it at a plunge, head first. Yes, yes; but had he given it quite sufficient reflection? Could he promise himself he would never regret? He was not doubting that Miss Marty would make him an excellent wife. Admirable creature, she bore every test he could apply. She was gentle, companionable, intelligent in converse, yet never forward in giving an opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence, her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself? Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound healed and ceased to smart? If he sent this letter, he had burnt his boats. He halted before the table and stood for a while considering; stood there so long that his pipe went out unheeded. Ought he not to re-write his proposal and word it so as to leave himself a loophole? As he conned the name on the address, by some trick of memory he found himself repeating Miss Marty's own protest against the Millennium: "Why couldn't we be let alone, to go on comfortably?" Confound the Millennium! Was it at the bottom of this too? The plaguy thing had a knack of intruding itself, just now, into all he undertook, and always mischievously. It was unsettling--Miss Marty's word again--infernally unsettling. He had begun to lose confidence in himself. The room was hot. He stepped to the window, flung it open, and drank in the cool air of the summer night. Below him lay the garden, wherein Mr. Basket's statuary showed here and there a glimmer in the velvet darkness. The Major turned back to the room and began to undress slowly; removing his wig, his coat, his waistcoat, and laying them on a chair. Next he turned out his breeches pockets and tossed his purse, with a handful of loose silver, upon the bed. With it there jingled the spare latchkey with which Mrs. Basket had entrusted him.