at Whitsuntide for! I don't mean that they said to each other: Let's ask
him down and then he'll marry Viola. They wouldn't even think it--they're
much too nice. Poor dears--they'd be horrified if they knew I knew it!
But it was underneath their minds, you know, pushing them on all the
time. I believe they sent Reggie up to have a look at you, though they
don't know that either. They think they sent him to see what I was up to.
You see, Furny dear, from their point of view you _are_ so eligible. And
really, do you know, I think that's what's dished you--what's dished us
both, if you like to put it that way. I'm sure you may."

I said it didn't matter much what dished me or how I put it, provided I
_was_ dished. But--was I?

Oh yes! She left me in no doubt that I was dished. And I saw--I still
see, and if anything more clearly--why.

I was everything that Canterbury approved of. And Viola, in her young
revolt, was up against everything of which Canterbury approved. Her
people were dear people; they were charming people, well-bred people;
they had unbroken traditions of beautiful behaviour. And they had tied
her up too tight in their traditions; that was all. Viola would never
marry anybody on whom Canterbury had set its seal.

And seeing all that, I saw that I had missed her by a mere accident. It
was my friend the General who had dished me when he testified to my
entire eligibility. That's to say, it was my own fault. If I had let well
alone; if I hadn't turned the General on to them, _I_ should have been
in the highest degree ineligible; _I_ should have been a person of whom
Canterbury most severely disapproved; when I've no doubt that Viola, out
of sheer perversity, would have insisted on marrying me.