Ursula smiled a little.

“Silly old Ken! You know, you’ve mucked this pretty thoroughly. You ought to have told him gently, and not when he was in bed with a cold.”

“I s’pose it was rather stupid,” agreed Kenneth dejectedly. “The worst of it is, I don’t want to upset him. I mean to say, we’re frightfully good pals and I don’t want to have a row.”

“‘Course not. Are you quite sure I couldn’t go to see him?”

“Good lord, no!” Kenneth was horrified. “He’d have apoplexy! No, there’s nothing for it, Ursula. We’ve got to get married on the Q T and break the news by degrees. I’ll get a licence, and—”

“You won’t! If your father doesn’t give his consent, I won’t marry you.”

No argument had any effect upon her. Kenneth tried many. He would have gone on arguing until midnight had she not ejected him.

Kenneth drove back to South Kensington, wrapped in gloom. He was trying to think of a way of persuading his parent. Such a way eluded him, and he spent the evening brooding over a pipe and staring blankly at the general.

Next morning he awoke suddenly. He lay for a few minutes, frowning at the bed-post. Then, suddenly, his brow cleared, and he bounced out of bed.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted. “Got it, got it, got it!”

II.

THE general was a little uneasy about his son. Kenneth had seemed very preoccupied for the last few weeks. Ursula’s name had not once passed his lips, but somehow the general did not take this as a good omen. And Kenneth was very often absent from home. Day after day he drove off in his racing-car and did not return until late at night. He offered no explanation for his strange demeanour, and the general was too proud to ask for one. He felt that his son was not pleased with him. Not that Kenneth was anything but polite to him. In fact, he behaved to his father as if nothing had happened. But there was just a faint undercurrent. The general did not like it.

About three weeks after the interview with his fiancée, Kenneth walked into his father’s club, attired for motoring. It was just after lunch, and he banked on finding his father in a mellow mood. There was a purposeful gleam in his eye as he went into the smoking room, but when he bent over his father, who was enjoying a siesta, his voice was as gentle as cooing doves.

“Pater, I want you.”

The general opened his eyes. He grunted.

“Hallo! What do you want?”

“You,” said Kenneth firmly. “Come on, sir.”

The general was drawn protesting from his chair.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What’s the matter? What do you mean by coming and disturbing me like this?”

Kenneth led him out of the room, rather like a nurse with a refractory child.

“I’ll explain as we go,” he said. “Where’s your coat?”

“I don’t want my coat! If the house is on fire tell me so at once and have done with it!”