"Varick doesn't look particularly happy, that I can see." "I wonder if Aunt Blanche would marry him _now_ ?" "I don't suppose he'd give her the chance--now." It wasn't a very chivalrous thing to say, or hear said, and Bubbles pinched him so viciously that he nearly cried out.
"You're not to talk like that of my Aunt Blanche.

Quite lately--not three months ago--someone asked her to marry him for the thousandth time! But of course she said no--as I shall do to you, a thousand times too, if we live long enough." She waited a moment, then said slowly: "Her man's rather like you.

He's very much what you will be, Bill, in about thirty years from now--a plain, good, priggish old fellow.

Of course you know who it is?
Mark Gifford, of the Home Office.

Aunt Blanche only keeps in with him because he's very useful to her sometimes." And then she added, with a touch of strange cruelty, "Just as _I_ shall always keep in with you, Bill, however tiresome and disagreeable you may be! Just because I find you so useful.