“What a pity we have to get back!” she said regretfully when the time for departure drew near.  “I want to begin right away, Trevor.  Why can’t we spend the night here?  Wire to Aunt Philippa, Max.  Say we are busy.”

Max grinned.  “What says Trevor?”

“Quite impossible,” said Mordaunt, with a smile at her ardent face.  “There isn’t a bed for you to sleep on.”

“I could sleep on the sofa with Cinders,” she said.  “We can sleep anywhere.”

“They’ve slept on a heap of stones before now,” remarked Max.

“I’m sure we haven’t!” She whisked round upon him with a suddenness that was almost a challenge.  “We haven’t, Max!” she repeated.

He stuck a cigarette into his mouth.  “All right, my dear girl.  My mistake, no doubt.  I thought you had.”

“Don’t be absurd!” ordered Chris, colouring vividly “We never did anything so—­so disreputable.”  She twined her arm impulsively in Mordaunt’s.  “Don’t believe him, Trevor!”

“I don’t,” he said, with his quiet eyes upon her upturned face.

Max laughed aloud.  “Why don’t you tell him the joke, Chris?”

“Because there isn’t any joke, and you’re very horrid,” she returned with spirit.  “Trevor, let’s go!”

“I am ready,” he said.

“Very well, then.”  Chris turned round with relief in her face and hastily tied her veil.  “Please find Cinders, Max,” she said.  “And bring Trevor’s coat.  It’s in the billiard-room.  I suppose we really must go back this time, but you will bring me again, won’t you, Trevor?”

“As often as you care to come,” he said.

“Ah, yes!  Only I’m so full of engagements just now.  It’s such a nuisance.  One can never get away.”

“What!  Tired of London?” he said.

“Oh no, not really.  But I want to be here, too.  I love this place.  You won’t do anything in it without me, will you?”

“Not without your approval, certainly,” he promised.

She turned back to him with her quick smile.  “Trevor, thank you!  I—­I’ve decided to marry you as soon as ever I can—­as soon as Hilda comes back from her honeymoon.”

He was smoking a cigarette.  He took it from between his lips and dropped it into an ash-tray.  For a moment his face was turned from her.  He seemed to be watching the smouldering ash.  Then, “Really, Chris?” he said, looking down at her again.

She was tugging at her gloves.  She thrust her hand out to him.  “Button it, please!” she said, rather breathlessly, as if the exertion had exhausted her somewhat.

He took it, bent over it, suddenly pressed his lips to the soft wrist.

“Oh, don’t!” said Chris, and snatched it from him.

When Max came back she was standing by the window, still fumbling at her glove, with her back turned, while her fiance leaned against the mantelpiece, finishing his cigarette.

CHAPTER VIII