“Hello daddy. Time for dinner, is it?” she asked, looking up from her book.

“Hello, dear. Just came in for a sniffer, you know how it is.” Silence, the long heavy sort that comes before a tricky question is asked.

“Mummy told you about Freddy, hrum?” she asked, beating him to the punch.

“Ha, oh, er. Was just about to…well, you know,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “Dashed odd. One minute you’re set to marry the poor boy, next you’re not—”

“Oh, I couldn’t marry Freddy, not that I’m not FOND of Freddy, I am, terribly. It’s just—I yelled at him about the tie he was wearing. I thought it hideous.”

“You did, did you?”

“It was shameful, already telling him how to live his life. You see, daddy, I believe in the Sovereignty of the Individual. But Freddy made me realize that the only way to protect that is to keep myself from chaining some poor chap in the holy bonds of matrimony.”

“I say,” her father said, his eyes getting wide with admiration. “That’s jolly decent of you, Margie.”