“Perry again!”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Glenarm raised her fan, in a sudden outburst of fury, and broke it with one smart blow on Geoffrey’s face.

“There!” she cried, with a stamp of her foot.  “My poor fan broken!  You monster, all through you!”

Geoffrey coolly took the broken fan and put it in his pocket.  “I’ll write to London,” he said, “and get you another.  Come along!  Kiss, and make it up.”

He looked over each shoulder, to make sure that they were alone then lifted her off the ground (she was no light weight), held her up in the air like a baby, and gave her a rough loud-sounding kiss on each cheek.  “With kind compliments from yours truly!” he said—­and burst out laughing, and put her down again.

“How dare you do that?” cried Mrs. Glenarm.  “I shall claim Mrs. Delamayn’s protection if I am to be insulted in this way!  I will never forgive you, Sir!” As she said those indignant words she shot a look at him which flatly contradicted them.  The next moment she was leaning on his arm, and was looking at him wonderingly, for the thousandth time, as an entire novelty in her experience of male human kind.  “How rough you are, Geoffrey!” she said, softly.  He smiled in recognition of that artless homage to the manly virtue of his character.  She saw the smile, and instantly made another effort to dispute the hateful supremacy of Perry.  “Put him off!” whispered the daughter of Eve, determined to lure Adam into taking a bite of the apple.  “Come, Geoffrey, dear, never mind Perry, this once.  Take me to the lake!”

Geoffrey looked at his watch.  “Perry expects me in a quarter of an hour,” he said.

Mrs. Glenarm’s indignation assumed a new form.  She burst out crying.  Geoffrey surveyed her for a moment with a broad stare of surprise—­and then took her by both arms, and shook her!

“Look here!” he said, impatiently.  “Can you coach me through my training?”

“I would if I could!”

“That’s nothing to do with it!  Can you turn me out, fit, on the day of the race?  Yes? or No?”

“No.”

“Then dry your eyes and let Perry do it.”

Mrs. Glenarm dried her eyes, and made another effort.

“I’m not fit to be seen,” she said.  “I’m so agitated, I don’t know what to do.  Come indoors, Geoffrey—­and have a cup of tea.”

Geoffrey shook his head.  “Perry forbids tea,” he said, “in the middle of the day.”

“You brute!” cried Mrs. Glenarm.

“Do you want me to lose the race?” retorted Geoffrey.

“Yes!”

With that answer she left him at last, and ran back into the house.

Geoffrey took a turn on the terrace—­considered a little—­stopped—­and looked at the porch under which the irate widow had disappeared from his view.  “Ten thousand a year,” he said, thinking of the matrimonial prospect which he was placing in peril.  “And devilish well earned,” he added, going into the house, under protest, to appease Mrs. Glenarm.