It always came back to that. He argued until her excuses seemed foolish; her defences were weakening; she thought how masterful he was.

“My things aren’t nearly ready yet.”

“Damn your things, darling.”

“I must get my trousseau together, Stephen. You know I must. You don’t want a dowdy wife, do you?”

“Don’t care a bit as long as I get her. You don’t suppose I’m marrying your clothes, do you?”

“Yes, but I can’t, Stephen. Not yet. Please wait just a little while. We’ve been engaged such a short time.”

That was how it ended, always. Then at last one day he pleaded so adroitly and with such winning fervour that she named her date, promising to marry him in June, if her father consented. It would make their engagement of three months’ duration; he must admit that it was short.

He began to plan their honeymoon; she listened breathlessly while he spoke of Paris and Brittany, or perhaps Florence, and Rome and Sicily. She was dazzled and eager. Life was beautiful.

Lawrence put forward no objections; it was Miss Arden who begged Elizabeth to wait. Lawrence said that he should like to see his little girl married among the roses, and was she to be married from a hotel or from home?

That diverted Miss Arden’s thoughts a little; the battle raged over Elizabeth, and in the end Lawrence won. She was to be married from a hotel, with a champagne breakfast. It was all very exciting and queer, and there was so much to be done that Elizabeth’s thoughts rarely travelled further than to the wedding itself. “Afterwards” was in the misty future; now there was her dress to be made, and her going-away frock to be chosen.

And as the time drew nearer she began to wish that it were over, and looked forward to the actual date as a day when all the wearisome preparations should be over and she might pause to draw breath.

Stephen grumbled at her constant preoccupation, but he submitted because he knew that soon, very soon, it would all be over, and he would be able to carry her off, away from a fussy aunt and trite father, and away from excited and admiring girl-friends.

It seemed to him that Elizabeth had no time to give him now; she was busy trying on clothes or acknowledging presents. She was looking tired, too, and there was no sense of repose in her home. Miss Arden saw to it that everyone, including herself, was in a continual state of bustle. She enjoyed it, and spent the day running up and downstairs, forgetting first this and then that, and growing steadily wearier and, therefore, more irritable.