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"Yes, I remember you always wanted. . . . Of course I'll put you into Starvecrow."

"Starvecrow!"

"Don't repeat my words. The Agent has always lived at Starvecrow, and there are quite enough of us here in the house. Besides there's another thing. How old are you?"

"Thirty-six."

"Time you married, ain't it?"

"I suppose it is."

"I was thirty, myself, when I married, but thirty-six is rather late. Haw is it you haven't married earlier?"

"Oh, I dunno—the war I suppose."

"The war seems to have had the opposite effect on most people. But my children don't seem a marrying lot. Doris . . . Hugh . . . there's Mary, of course, and George, but I don't congratulate either of 'em. Julian's a mean blackguard, and Rose——" Sir John defined Rose in terms most unsuitable to a clergyman's wife.

"You really must think about it now," he continued—"you're the heir; and of course you know—we want money."

Peter did not speak.

"We want money abominably," said Sir John, "in fact I don't know how we're to carry on much longer without it. I don't want to have to sell land—indeed, it's practically impossible, all trussed up as we are. Starvecrow could go, of course, but it's useful for grazing and timber."