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Bee. “It is not as though people might think anything!” added Mrs Gibson—at the time a little flown with wine. Harry Gibson stuck to his guns and wouldn’t hear of a September wedding.
    Appropriately enough, the spring of his intransigence was now economic: the reverse of his suspicion that he’d been diddled was that he now felt the gift of Miranda’s hand less inexplicably above his deserts. In fact he felt Joyces were doing pretty nicely out of him. A spouse for the unmarriageable daughter, besides the makings of a very sound little business—Harry Gibson belatedly recognised that there were no flies on old man Joyce; but as well felt himself less of a pauper, less entirely on the receiving end. When Mrs Gibson suggested that Miranda might take offence, Harry Gibson laughed quite coarsely—and stuck to his guns. He would have liked a year, but this he did know to be impossible; six months was the longest grace he could win for himself—accurately he calculated it out, to December the sixteenth—and he succeeded in winning it.
    â€œSuppose Mr Joyce changes his mind?” asked old Mrs Gibson, at last coming down to brass tacks.
    â€œHe won’t,” said Harry.
    He knew Joyces too committed to their new enterprise to draw back. The little strips of woven silk, at first so hateful, now gave him courage.
    â€œI consider six months a proper time,” said Harry Gibson, “and I am surprised Miranda doesn’t think so also.”
    Once again, his masterfulness did the trick. This last exchange with his mother took place at breakfast; that evening before dinner, in the Knightsbridge drawing-room, Miranda fluttered gratefully into his arms.
    â€œIt was only your mother and Auntie Bee,” whispered Miranda, “who wanted to hurry things so! I need six months at least, to get used to my big, fierce lover!”
    What Mr Gibson gained by this delay he knew only too well: simply delay. For what was there could happen in even six months, to restore King Hal to his Spanish rose? There was nothing; he was simply postponing the nightmare moment when he would indeed be shut up alone with Miranda Joyce. It was still, as his mother would have said, a something …
    All that evening Miranda behaved even more vivaciously than usual—a pretty upsurge of spirits natural to a maiden reprieved from the Minotaur. She played and sang, and sang and played, and teased Harry for his indifference to wallpapers, then relented and showed him the new curtain-stuff, blue because it was his favourite colour. “To match his eyes!” cried Miranda—swiftly the little tease again. “I truly believe that the reason! Oh, how vain my Harry is!” Nothing could have been less like sulks; with some complacency, Mr Gibson sought his mother’s eye—and was astonished to surprise her in the act of directing a soothing glance upon Auntie Bee. They were always exchanging glances of some kind, however, far too complex for any male to interpret, so he paid no attention. He asked Miranda to play another piece on the piano, and she played one. He didn’t ask for an encore, and she stopped playing. It was altogether one of the least disagreeable evenings he’d ever spent, at Knightsbridge; and as a further proof of independence, the evening after that he didn’t dine there at all.
    Miranda took the opportunity to have a little talk with her father.
    4
    â€œDadda,” said Miranda Joyce.
    As a rule she followed Auntie Bee to the drawing-room, and Mr Joyce would have preferred her to do so now; for once unencumbered by guests he’d meant to have a good go at the port. But his look of surprise was ineffectual as Auntie Bee’s beckonings; Miranda stayed.
    â€œDadda, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
    Mr Joyce pulled out an evening paper. Again, she didn’t take the hint.
    â€œBecause I do sometimes feel, Dadda, that before