Peggy, herself, from the safe shelter of Noel’s arms, smiled securely upon both.

“You mustn’t tickle me,” she said to her protector, “or I shall come undone.  Why hasn’t you been to take me for another ride, Noel?”

“Sweetheart—­” he began with compunction.

But Peggy interrupted very decidedly.  “No, you needn’t make excuses.  And I’m not goin’ to be your sweetheart any more—­ever—­not till you take me for another ride.”

“Oh, don’t be cruel!” besought Noel.  “I’ve been so shockingly busy lately.  It wasn’t that I forgot you, Peggy.  I couldn’t do that if I tried.  So give me a kiss, little sweetheart, and let’s be friends!  I vow I’ll tickle you if you won’t.”

Peggy, however, was nothing daunted by this threat.  She kept her face rigidly turned over his shoulder.  “When will you take me for another ride?” she demanded imperiously.

“Peggy,” her mother broke in again, “I can’t have you behaving like this, dear.  It isn’t decent.  Go back to ayah at once!”

Peggy peeped mischievously over Noel’s shoulder.  “If I get down again, I shall come all undone,” she said.

“By Jove, what a calamity!” said Noel.  “Haven’t you got a pin or something to hold the thing together?”

She tightened her arms about his neck.  “You carry me back!” she whispered ingratiatingly.  “An’ I’ll give you three booful kisses!”

Noel succumbed at once.  “Can’t resist that!” he remarked to Daisy.  “I’ll take her back and slap her for you, shall I?”

“I wish you would,” said Daisy.

“He daren’t!” declared Peggy.

“Ho!  Daren’t he?” laughed Noel.  “That’s the rashest thing you ever said in your life.  Come along, you scaramouch, and we’ll see about that!”

He bore her away, with her draperies slipping from her, followed by the ayah whose open horror was surveyed by Peggy with eyes of shining amusement.  A little later her shrill squeals announced the fact that Noel was carrying out his threat after a fashion which she found highly enjoyable, and Noel subsequently emerged in a somewhat heated and tumbled condition and bade Daisy a hasty farewell.

“I’ve chastised the imp, but she’s quite unregenerate.  Glad I’m not her mother.  I’ve sworn a solemn oath to take her out on the Chimpanzee to-morrow.  I haven’t time, but that’s a detail.  I’ll work it somehow, if you don’t mind having her ready by ten.  I’ll race round after parade.”

“I ought not to let her go,” Daisy protested.

He laughed at that.  “Yes, yes, you must.  I’ve promised.  Good-bye!  Ten o’clock then!”

He shook her hand and departed, singing as he went.

Hunt-Goring from the verandah watched him all-unperceived.

“The whelp seems pleased with himself,” he observed to Daisy, with a sneering smile.  “I presume that Fortune—­in the form of Miss Olga Ratcliffe—­favours the brave.”