Mrs. Delarayne removed her hand. "Joseph, I had hoped you were not going to refer to this again for some while. I have told you hundreds of times, or more, that a woman cannot marry with decency a second time when she has two strapping daughters who have not yet married once." Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders. "It's all very well," pursued the widow, "but it is difficult enough for Cleo to forgive my having married at all. I could not possibly confront her with a second husband before she, poor girl, had met her first. Oh no!--it would be too great an insult. I'd die of shame. No, before you have me you'll have to get my daughters married. That bargain I strike with you." He smiled ecstatically. "Promise?" "I promise." He bent forward and kissed her very clumsily, and Mrs. Delarayne by blowing her nose was able deftly to wipe her mouth without his noticing the movement. "What is that young fool, my secretary, doing?" he enquired at last. "Did I not bring him and Cleo together all through the spring at Brineweald Park?" "Denis is a nincompoop," Mrs. Delarayne declared drily. "I don't believe for a minute that we should any of us be here if he had taken Adam's place in the Garden of Eden. What a fortunate thing it was, by-the-by, that the Almighty did not choose a very modern sort of man to live in sin with Eve!" Sir Joseph laughed. "Denis a nincompoop? I don't believe it." Mrs. Delarayne snorted. "But how are they getting on?" "Don't ask me," she sighed wearily. "They philander. They are now at the very dangerous and inconclusive stage of being 'practically engaged.' It never signifies anything, because no man who really means business has the patience to be practically engaged." Sir Joseph looked and felt sympathetic. "They hold hands, I believe," the widow resumed, "and discuss the philosophers. Probably in a year's time if all goes well they will kiss and discuss the poets." Sir Joseph uttered an expletive of surprise. "Yes--I'm disappointed in Denis. I don't trust these very cheerful men, who have a ready laugh and a sense of humour. They laugh to conceal the fact that they cannot crow, and they crack jokes because they cannot break hearts. Give me the broody serious men with fierce looks and slow smiles." "Isn't Cleo in love with him?" "Poor soul!" Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed. "She does her best. She would take him, of course, simply because it will soon be an indignity for her to remain single one minute longer. She would probably die of shame too if someone else took Denis from her. But I think you know, that the man who provokes Cleo's love will have to be a little bit different from Denis." CHAPTER II