—Thirty-four years old, my dear Hugo, is already an age to settle down.

"Huh?" Hugo Satterly opened one eye with a start and looked at the lanky figure reclining elegantly on the carriage seat in front of him. "What's that about?"

Philip Augustus Marlowe, seventh Baron Ruthven, didn't deign to answer directly. Gazing out the carriage window at the summer landscape, he remarked:

—I never thought I'd see Jack and Harry Lester competing to see who would be the first to give the Lesters a new generation.

Hugo straightened up.

"What a strange idea. Jack suggested placing bets, but Lucinda overheard him." Hugo grimaced. "And that was the end of it, naturally. Lucinda said she wasn't up for us all watching Sophie and her counting the days. A real shame."

A fleeting smile appeared on Philip's lips.

"A strangely sensible woman, Lucinda," he added after a moment, more to himself than to his friend. "And Jack's been very lucky with Sophie, too."

They were returning from a week at Lester Hall. Sophie, Jack Lester's wife, had presided over the festivities with the help of Lucinda, Harry Lester's new wife. Both were discreetly but visibly pregnant and looked radiant. The overflowing joy that filled the house had infected everyone.
But the week had inevitably drawn to a close, and Philip was aware that, despite the serene and orderly atmosphere that reigned in his ancestral home, there was no warmth there, no promise of a future awaiting him. The thought that he had invited Hugo, a recalcitrant bachelor with whom he had shared many years of friendship, with the sole purpose of distracting himself, of taking his mind off the bleak road he saw opening up before him, hovered vaguely in his mind, though he tried to ignore it.

He shifted his position and continued to stare stubbornly at the flowering fields while listening to the sustained clatter of the horses' hooves. Hugo, however, bluntly brought up the issue.

"Well, I guess you're next." Hugo leaned his shoulders back on the seat cushion and gazed out at the fields with imperturbable serenity. "I imagine that's why you're so melancholic."

Philip narrowed his eyes and fixed them on Hugo's innocent countenance. "To surrender to the bonds of matrimony, to knowingly enter into the

mousetrap, it is not exactly a pleasant thought.

—It doesn't even cross my mind.

Philip's expression turned sour. Hugo had his own income and only distant relatives, so he had no need to marry. Philip's case was very different.

"I don't understand why you're taking it so seriously." Hugo looked across the carriage. "I suppose your stepmother would be delighted to parade a whole line of marriageable young women before you. All you have to do is take a look at them and choose."

"I'm sure Henrietta would love to lend a hand with that. However," Philip continued steelily, "if she makes a mistake in choosing the candidates, it would be me, not her, who would suffer the consequences. For life. No, thank you. If I'm doomed to make a mistake that could ruin my life, I'd rather it be my fault."