‘I don’t understand you, Kingston. A woman has so much more to think of than a man in some ways. Surely ... you know by now that I--well, that I do care for you. You mustn’t ask me to be always saying so. You wouldn’t like it if I did. Do be reasonable. One has to behave decently--yes? Our points of view are so different. It seems to me that I tell you far too much--sometimes I think I am shameless and horrid--and yet you--you think me cold and unsatisfactory.’ ‘Can’t you realize how a man starves for a little warmth, Gundred?’ ‘I hate to think of men like that; I am sure you are not one of them. Anyhow, I hope we shall never condescend to their horrid level. You are engaged to me, Kingston, and that ought to be quite enough.... It is for me.’ She glanced at him with gleaming eyes. He heard the cool, level tone, and missed the gleam. He sighed. ‘And some people have thought _me_ cold and fish-blooded,’ he thought, in a spasm of irritation. But clearly it was useless to dash himself against the firm rock of Gundred’s placidity. ‘You are almost as impersonal as one of those Buddhist saints that my Uncle Robert has lived with,’ he replied. ‘You make one feel cold.’ Gundred, resolved in her attitude, would take no notice of his renewed attack. ‘Your Uncle Robert,’ she said, ‘have I heard of him? Oh yes; he is that brother of your father’s who ran away to Japan so many years ago and became a Buddhist himself, poor man, didn’t he? Will he ever come back to England?’ ‘Not if he’s as wise as he sounds. His life out there seems to be almost perfect contentment.’ ‘How strange that is--yes? Well, I have got odd relations, too, in out-of-the-way corners of the world, you know. There’s poor papa’s sister, Isabel Darrell, away in Australia, with a daughter. I really rather hope they will never come home. Colonial relations are apt to be so truly dreadful. And now, Kingston dear, what I came to see you about to-day is this. Have you any very strong ideas as to the honeymoon? Because papa and Uncle Henry and Aunt Agnes are all very anxious that we should go to Brakelond. And I do think there is something rather nice in the idea. After all, I suppose it will be our place some day, and our children’s after us. In a way it is my wedding-present to you. Don’t you think we might begin our married life there? Uncle Henry won’t be in our way at all. He is kept in a wing right apart from the rest of the Castle, and the building is so enormous that you might put up twenty people there, and no one need have any notion that there was anyone in the place besides himself.’