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 of tacit deference for both parents. "Fact is, I was keepin' next Saturday."

"Why not go this afternoon as you have got wrong in the date? Your mother has been at so much trouble, and I am sure Adela Rocklaw will be disappointed."

"Unfortunately I've fixed up this other thing."

"Engaged to a music hall, I understand."

"Pantomime at Drury Lane," said Philip the sombre.

"Quite so." The Proconsul, like other great men, was slightly impatient of meticulous detail in affairs outside his orbit. "Hardly right, is it, to disappoint Adela Rocklaw, especially after your mother"—Mother, still mounted on the Louis Quinze, sat with eyelids lowered but very level—"has taken so much trouble? At least I, at your age, should not have thought so."

Mr. Philip pondered a little.

"A bit awkward perhaps. I say, Mater, don't you think you could fix up another day?"

The gaze of Mother grew a little less abstract at this invocation.

"Impossible, Phil-ipp"—the Rubens-Minerva countenance, whose ample chin was folded trebly in rolls of adipose tissue was a credit to the Governing Classes—"Dear Adela goes to High Cliff on Wednesday for the shooting."

"Well, I'm sorry," said Mr. Philip quite nicely and