Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face. "Father," she said, "Bob and I--" Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion's hand and held it tight. I thought it better to try to help them out. "I don't know," I said, "whether I've guessed rightly--" "Of course you have, father," said Marion. "If not," I said, "it'll be very embarrassing for all of us when I tell you what my guess is." "Marion and I--" said Bob. "Have spent the morning," I said, "in finding out that you want to marry each other?" "Of course we have," said Marion. "Of course," said Bob. The discovery that they both wanted the same thing made them ridiculously happy. Marion kissed me with effusive ardour, putting her left arm tight round my neck, but still holding on to Bob with her right hand. Bob, after our first raptures had subsided a little, insisted on going down to Godfrey's lodgings, and apologizing for breaking his ribs. I told him that an apology delivered in that spirit would merely intensify Godfrey's wish to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But nothing I said moved Bob in the least. He was so happy that he wanted to abase himself before some one. CHAPTER XV Babberly is in some ways a singularly unlucky man. A place for him, and that a high one, ought to have been quite secure in the next Unionist Cabinet. Now he will never hold office under any government, and yet no one can say that his collapse was in any way his own fault. On the very day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received Godfrey's letter, Babberly announced his intention of holding another Unionist demonstration in Belfast. He did not mean any harm by this. He intended nothing worse than another eloquent speech and expected nothing more serious than the usual cheers. He regards demonstrations very much as my nephew Godfrey does garden-parties. They are troublesome functions, requiring a good deal of labour and care for their successful accomplishment, but they are necessary. People expect something of the kind from time to time; and--if I do not give garden-parties, I should not, so Godfrey says, keep up my position in the county. If Babberly did not, so to speak, give demonstrations he would lose his position in the political world. Babberly's position is, of course, vastly more important than mine.