Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of excitement in the whole conventional thing! There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond talking on general subjects! This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered. He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person could ever do. She almost became jealous of it all. Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings. Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's, Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not allow her stepfather to give her away. Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome, stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids. Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing! And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son." The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of the honeymoon."