“We had a slight difference on the subject of kisses.  Don’t you remember it?”

Happily there was no necessity to reply, for my father came to say that he wished to show his lordship the improvements he had been making, and the rest of us were at liberty to follow them.

The improvements consisted chiefly of a new wing to the old house, containing a dining room, still unfurnished, which had been modelled, as I found later, on the corresponding room in Castle Raa.

With a proud lift of his white head my father pointed out the beauties of his new possession, while my intended husband, with his monocle to his eye, looked on with a certain condescension, and answered with a languid humour that narrowly bordered on contempt.

“Oak, sir, solid oak,” said my father, rapping with his knuckles on the tall, dark, heavy wainscoting.

“As old as our hearts and as hard as our heads, I suppose,” said Lord Raa.

“Harder than some, sir,” said my father.

“Exactly,” said Lord Raa in his slow drawl, and then there was general laughter.

The bell rang for luncheon, and we went into the plain old dining room, where Aunt Bridget placed her principal guest on her right and told him all about her late husband, the Colonel, his honours and military achievements.

I could see that Lord Raa was soon very weary of this, and more than once, sitting by his side, I caught the cynical and rather supercilious responses to which, under the gloss of his gracious manners, Aunt Bridget seemed quite oblivious.

I was so nervous and embarrassed that I spoke very little during luncheon, and even Aunt Bridget observed this at last.

“Mary, dear, why don’t you speak?” she said.

But without waiting for my reply she proceeded to explain to his lordship that the strangest change had come over me since I was a child, when I had been the sauciest little chatterbox in the world, whereas now I was so shy that it was nearly impossible to get a word out of me.

“Hope I shall be able to get one word out of her, at least,” said his lordship, whereupon Aunt Bridget smiled significantly and Betsy Beauty burst into fits of laughter.

Almost before the meal was over, my father rose from his seat at the head of the table, and indicating the lawyers who sat near to him, he said: 

“These gentlemen and I have business to fix up—­money matters and all that—­so I guess we’ll step into the library and leave you young people to look after yourselves.”

Everybody rose to leave the room.

“All back for tea-time,” said Aunt Bridget.

“Of course you don’t want me,” said Betsy Beauty with a giggle, and at the next moment I was alone with his lordship, who drew a long breath that was almost like a yawn, and said: 

“Is there no quiet place we can slip away to?”

There was the glen at the back of the house (the Cape Flora of Martin Conrad), so I took him into that, not without an increasing sense of embarrassment.  It was a clear October day, the glen was dry, and the air under the shadow of the thinning trees was full of the soft light of the late autumn.