Freda stared at him, hope and incredulity alternating in her face. “How can you be so certain? How do you know you’re going to marry Celia eventually?”“I’ve known it for the last two years,” he replied coolly. “It will take more than Laurence Clumber to put me off.”“Do you mean—” Freda was impressed in spite of herself. “Do you mean that you won’t let her marry him?”“Reduced to its simplest terms, I suppose that’s what I do mean,” Brian agreed.“How are you going to prevent her?”“The same way I’ve prevented her marrying all the other Laurences,” he replied with a smile. “This isn’t the first time, by a long chalk. Celia’s both romantic and flirtatious. She enjoys falling in love. She even enjoys falling out of love. That’s a very different thing from wanting to settle down and marry someone.”“She says this is quite different from the others,” Freda observed diffidently.“They’ve all been different from the others,” Brian assured her a trifle callously.
