"We were in too much of a hurry," he said, arguing in a philosophical if amatory vein. "Why not let it run until we get back to England? It’s beastly to think about money in such a place as this, and I’m sure Marjory would hate me for doing it. I’ll speak to my uncle when I get back, and he might do something for me. Perhaps he’ll send me out to Canada; there’s lots of cash to be made there, and why shouldn’t we make some of it? Let’s have some fun, Bob. You’re such a gloomy beggar; you always look at things in the worst light." Bob retorted that it depended upon the age of the lady; a vague and half-truthful remembrance of the havoc which the sun had played with the otherwise peach-like skin of a nameless nymph. The morning found him in a dubious-mood about Nellie, but less alarmed about the enormity of the offence. She really was a "jolly little girl," and it had been quite impossible not to propose to her in the circumstances. With good luck, her views upon the final step of matrimony might be as distant as his own. And who could say that something would not turn up? "Mrs. Rider will make the devil of a row about it, and we shall have to clear out," he said musingly. "I know she brought the girls here to get ’em off, but she won’t think very much of the particular planks for this particular plunge. I’m sorry, too, that we spoke to the ’little widow.’ It’s rather jolly to be thought rich, though it wouldn’t be honest to the girls to leave them under that impression. I shall tell Nellie just what I’ve got when we’re up in the wood this morning. Two hundred a year sounds all right when someone else is paying your hotel bill. It’s when you come to running a pug dog and a motor-car that you find where the slice pinches." "But one would begin in a small way, Bob." Bob shook his head. "That’s what the modern girl tells you; she follows it up with the hint that she’d like a flat overlooking the park, and really couldn’t live in Bayswater. It’s a day of big ideas and little balances. I believe my old guv’nor was right when he said that money was the greatest curse that ever came into the world. There’d be a lot of happiness if it wasn’t for money, Dick. Think of it, if fashion wasn’t so rotten, we might camp out the first year, live in a tent for two, and sleep by the roadside. I’m told it’s healthy, and I know Mecredy did it. There’d be no rent to pay, and we might sell our portraits as an advertisement for a tonic. As it is, we’ve just got to own up that we’re paupers; and if the girls take pity on us—well, we’ll feel smaller than ever." Dick was not so sure of it. Ancient fables concerning the angelic qualities of the sex still buoyed him up with youthful hopes.