“Shouldn’t I?” he said and for a moment his mouth was grim.  “I am not accustomed to being regarded as an amiable nonentity, I assure you.  It’s settled then, is it?  The first week in April?  And you are to come to us for at least a fortnight beforehand.”

Dinah nodded, her head bent.  “All right,—­if Mother doesn’t mind.”

“What would happen if she did?” he asked curiously.

“It just wouldn’t be done,” she made answer.

“Wouldn’t it?  Not if you insisted?”

“I couldn’t insist,” she said, her voice very low.

“Why couldn’t you?  I should have thought you had a will of your own.  Don’t you ever assert yourself?”

“Against her?  No, never!” Dinah gave a little shudder.  “Don’t let’s talk of it!” she said.  “Isn’t it time to go back?  I believe I ought to be clearing away.”

He detained her for a moment.  “You’re not going to work like a nigger when you are married to me,” he said.

She smiled up at him, a merry, dimpling smile.  “Oh no, I shall just enjoy myself then—­like Rose de Vigne.  I shall be much too grand to work.  There!  I really must go back.  Thank you again ever so much—­ever so much—­for the lovely ring.  I hope you’ll never find out how unworthy I am of it.”

She drew his head down with quivering courage and bestowed a butterfly kiss upon his cheek.  And then in a second she was gone from his hold, gone like a woodland elf with a tinkle of laughter and the skipping of fairy feet.

Sir Eustace followed her flight with his eyes only, but in those eyes was the leaping fire of a passion that burned around her in an ever-narrowing circle.  She knew that it was there, but she would not look back to see it.  For deep in her heart she feared that flame as she feared nothing else on earth.

CHAPTER III

DESPAIR

“If I had known that this was going to happen, I would never have troubled to cultivate their acquaintance,” said Lady Grace fretfully.  “I knew of course that that artful little minx was running after the man, but that he could ever be foolish enough to let himself be caught in such an obvious trap was a possibility that I never seriously contemplated.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Rose.

She had said it many times before with the same rather forced smile.  It was not a subject that she greatly cared to discuss.  The news of Dinah’s conquest had come like a thunderbolt.  In common with her mother, she had never seriously thought that Sir Eustace could be so foolish.  But since the utterly unexpected had come to pass, it seemed to her futile to talk about it.  Dinah had secured the finest prize within reach for the moment, and there was no disputing the fact.

“The wedding is to take place so soon too,” lamented Lady Grace.  “That, I have no doubt, is the doing of that scheming mother of hers.  What shall we do about going to it, Rose?  Do you want to go, dear?”