But after all, you can wait.

You owe something to your mother, something to your family--something to me as your father's representative." "Oh, of course," Pen said, feeling rather relieved.
"Well, as you have pledged your word to her, give us another, will you Arthur ?" "What is it ?" Arthur asked.
"That you will make no private marriage--that you won't be taking a trip to Scotland, you understand." "That would be a falsehood.

Pen never told his mother a falsehood," Helen said.
Pen hung down his head again, and his eyes filled with tears of shame.

Had not this whole intrigue been a falsehood to that tender and confiding creature who was ready to give up all for his sake?
He gave his uncle his hand.
"No, sir--on my word of honour, as a gentleman," he said, "I will never marry without my mother's consent!" and giving Helen a bright parting look of confidence and affection unchangeable, the boy went out of the drawing-room into his own study.
"He's an angel--he's an angel," the mother cried out in one of her usual raptures.
"He comes of a good stock, ma'am," said her brother-in-law--"of a good stock on both sides." The Major was greatly pleased with the result of his diplomacy--so much so, that he once more saluted the tips of Mrs.
Pendennis's glove, and dropping the curt, manly, and straightforward tone in which he had conducted the conversation with the lad, assumed a certain drawl which he always adopted when he was most conceited and fine.
"My dear creature," said he, in that his politest tone, "I think it certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last botte was a successful one.

I tell you how I came to think of it.