Eliot was very far from being subservient. Almost before the neighbourhood's congratulations had ceased to rain about them both he was demanding that Ann should fix the date of their wedding. "You impatient man!" she teased him. "Why, we're only just this minute engaged! We shan't be married for ages and ages yet." "Oh, shan't we?" he retorted. "We'll be married in May, sweetheart. That's exactly as long as I'll consent to wait. And I'm only agreeing to that because a woman always seems to think it's part of the ceremony to buy a quantity of clothes when she's married--just as though she couldn't buy them afterwards quite as well as before!" "In May? Oh, no, Eliot." Ann shook her head with decision. "That's the unlucky month for marriages." "You don't mean to say you're superstitious?" "I don't know." She spoke uncertainly. "But--we've had so much ill-luck. I don't think I want to tempt Providence by getting married in May." He shouted with laughter. "Very well, you absurd baby, it shan't be May," he conceded, adding cheerfully: "We'll fix it for April then." "No, no. That's too soon," she protested hastily. "Let's decide on--June." "April," he repeated firmly. "June"--with an effort to be equally firm. "If you say that again," he returned coolly, "I shall make it March. I'd ever so much rather, too," he wound up boyishly. "That would be quite impossible," replied Ann triumphantly. "I've promised to go and stay with the Brabazons in March." He took her by the shoulders and pulled her towards him. "Let it be April, then," he said, adding quickly, as he read dissent in her eyes: "We've wasted such a lot of time, beloved." She yielded at that. "Very well, then--April. But I'm afraid you're going to be a dreadfully self-willed husband, Eliot"--smiling as though the prospect were in no way distasteful. "I think I am," he acknowledged, with all a man's supreme egotism. He laughed down at her, and, lifting her right off the ground into his arms, kissed her with swift passion. "You're much too thin," he grumbled discontentedly, as he set her down again. "You weigh next to nothing." "And whose fault is that, pray?" she asked gaily. She was horrified to see his face darken with sudden pain. "Don't," he said abruptly, in a stifled voice. "Oh, my dear--" She was back in his arms in an instant, soothing, comforting, and scolding him all in a breath. "You needn't worry over my boniness," she assured him cheerfully. "When we're married and settled down and I've no worries, I expect I shall get appallingly plump and have to take to one of those anti-fat cures." "You--fat!" He laughed. "There's about as much danger of that as of Mrs. Carberry becoming a philanthropist."