"Your school must be an extraordinary place," said Lady Strife. "I shall have to write to the principal--now, don't interrupt--I shall certainly write; I won't have such ideas put into your head. You're quite old enough to think seriously of marriage. Why, I'd already had two offers at your age." Tony looked surprised. She was very fond of her mother, but always wondered how she had ever managed to get married at all, and that she should have had more than one chance seemed positively miraculous. Lady Strife saw the surprised look, and spoke more sharply. "Really, Antoinette, you're no more than a great baby. You need education in the most ordinary matters. I'll write to your Aunt Margaret, and ask her to get some eligible men to meet you. Now don't _cry_." Tony was actually crying. She was generally as chary and ashamed of tears as a boy. "I--I can't help it. Oh, mother, don't send me to Aunt Maggie's. Oh, don't make her ask el-el-eligible m-men." "Don't be a blithering idiot!" shouted Sir Gambier. "If you can't control yourself, go upstairs and begin packing at once." Tony went out, crying into a handkerchief stained with blackberry juice. Her demoralisation was complete. Awdrey, who had been lurking uneasily in the dining-room, came out as the boudoir door opened and slammed, and for a moment stood horrified at the sight of her sister. "Hullo, Tony! Whenever did I last see you cry? What's the matter, old girl?" "M-Mother thinks I'm old enough to-to b-be married." "To whom?" shrieked Awdrey, all agog at once. "Nobody--only some el-eligible men at--at Aunt Maggie's." "What rot you're talking. Hasn't any one asked you?" "Of course not." "Then what on earth's all the row about? It's only natural mother should want you to be married some day." "But--but I've sworn never to marry." "Ah," said Awdrey knowingly, as she tramped upstairs beside her sister; then in a gentler voice, "Why can't you marry _him_?" "Who's 'him'?" "Why, the man who made you swear not to marry." "It wasn't a man--it was a g-girl," and Tony's tears burst out afresh, as she remembered how she and Gladys Gates had sworn to each other never to marry, but always to live together, and had solemnly divided and eaten a lump of sugar in ratification of the covenant. Awdrey was speechless with disgust, but she went with Tony into her room, because she had not yet found out what she primarily wanted to know. "You're an extraordinary kid, Tony--I really should call you only half there. You kick up all this ridiculous fuss at the mere mention of marriage, and yet you go about with a man like Furlonger. Oh yes, I know all about it. Father was bawling loud enough for every one this side of the Channel to hear." "But I tell you I didn't know he was Furlonger. Besides, he didn't want me to marry him. He wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing." "Oh, no, I'm quite sure of that. But you don't tell me your relations with him were entirely platonic." "Yes, I do."