"You spoke of your marriage, Lawrence; is it to be soon ?" "This autumn, I hope," said Lawrence; "at least, if I can overcome Sir Richard's ridiculous notion that a girl ought not to marry till she's twenty-one.

He's a most crotchety old fellow, that future father-in-law of mine." When Lawrence had first come back from the war I had thought him wonderfully improved, but a long course of spoiling and flattery had done him a world of harm.

He liked very much to be lionised, and to see him now posing in drawing-rooms, surrounded by a worshipping throng of women, was enough to sicken any sensible being.
As for Derrick, though he could not be expected to feel his bereavement in the ordinary way, yet his father's death had been a great shock to him.

It was arranged that after settling various matters in Bath he should go down to stay with his sister for a time, joining me in Montague Street later on.

While he was away in Birmingham, however, an extraordinary change came into my humdrum life, and when he rejoined me a few weeks later, I--selfish brute--was so overwhelmed with the trouble that had befallen me that I thought very little indeed of his affairs.
He took this quite as a matter of course, and what I should have done without him I can't conceive.