I took it upon myself to dismiss her with a nod after she had smoked a cigarette over her coffee.  Mrs. Marigold, as a soldier’s wife, I announced, had a world of invaluable advice to give her.  Willie Connor opened the door.  On the threshold she said very prettily: 

“Don’t drink too much of Major Meredyth’s old port.  It has been known before now to separate husbands and wives for years and years.”

He looked after her for a few seconds before he closed the door.

Oh, my God!  I’ve looked like that, in my time, after one dear woman....  Humanity is very simple, after all.  Every generation does exactly the same beautiful, foolish things as its forerunner.  As he approached the table, I said with a smile:—­

“You’re only copying your great-great-grandfather.”

“In what way, sir?” he asked, resuming his place.

I pushed the decanter of port.  “He watched the disappearing skirt of your great-great-grandmother.”

“She was doubtless a very venerable old lady,” said he, flushing and helping himself to wine.  “I never knew her, but she wasn’t a patch on Betty!”

“But,” said I, “when your great-great-grandfather opened the door for her to pass out, she wasn’t venerable at all, but gloriously young.”

“I suppose he was satisfied, poor old chap.”  He took a sip.  “But those days did not produce Betty Fairfaxes.”  He laughed.  “I’m jolly sorry for my ancestors.”

Well—­that is the way I like to hear a young man talk.  It was the modern expression of the perfect gentle knight.  In so far as went his heart’s intention and his soul’s strength to assure it, I had no fear for Betty’s happiness.  He gave it to her fully into her own hands; whether she would throw it away or otherwise misuse it was another matter.

Though I have ever loved women, en tout bien et tout honneur, their ways have never ceased from causing me mystification.  I think I can size up a man, especially given such an opportunity as I had in the case of Willie Connor—­I have been more or less trained in the business all my man’s life; but Betty Fairfax, whom I had known intimately for as many years as she could remember, puzzled me exceedingly.  I defy anyone to have picked a single fault in her demeanour towards her husband of to-morrow.  She lit a cigarette for him in the most charming way in the world, and when he guided the hand that held the match, she touched his crisp hair lightly with the fingers of the other.  She was all smiles.  When we met in the drawing-room, she retailed with a spice of mischief much of Mrs. Marigold’s advice.  She had seated herself on the music stool.  Swinging round, she quoted: 

“‘Even the best husband,’ she said, ’will go on swelling himself up with vanity just because he’s a man.  A sensible woman, Miss, lets him go on priding of himself, poor creature.  It sort of helps his dignity when the time comes for him to eat out of your hand, and makes him think he’s doing you a favour.’”