engagement--horrid word in the first place--is a private matter,
and should be treated as such."

Yet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were
racially correct. The spirit of the generations had smiled
through them, rejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy
because it promised the continuance of life on earth. To Cecil
and Lucy it promised something quite different--personal love.
Hence Cecil's irritation and Lucy's belief that his irritation
was just.

"How tiresome!" she said. "Couldn't you have escaped to tennis?"

"I don't play tennis--at least, not in public. The neighbourhood
is deprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as
I have is that of the Inglese Italianato."

"Inglese Italianato?"

"E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb?"

She did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had
spent a quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since
his engagement, had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness
which he was far from possessing.

"Well," said he, "I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me.
There are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them,
and I must accept them."