Meanwhile Mr. Delamayn, by a strange coincidence, took exactly the same course which Miss Silvester had taken before him.  He, too, attempted to withdraw from the coming game.

“Thanks very much,” he said.  “Could you additionally honor me by choosing somebody else?  It’s not in my line.”

Fifty years ago such an answer as this, addressed to a lady, would have been considered inexcusably impertinent.  The social code of the present time hailed it as something frankly amusing.  The company laughed.  Blanche lost her temper.

“Can’t we interest you in any thing but severe muscular exertion, Mr. Delamayn?” she asked, sharply.  “Must you always be pulling in a boat-race, or flying over a high jump?  If you had a mind, you would want to relax it.  You have got muscles instead.  Why not relax them?”

The shafts of Miss Lundie’s bitter wit glided off Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn like water off a duck’s back.

“Just as you please,” he said, with stolid good-humor.  “Don’t be offended.  I came here with ladies—­and they wouldn’t let me smoke.  I miss my smoke.  I thought I’d slip away a bit and have it.  All right!  I’ll play.”

“Oh! smoke by all means!” retorted Blanche.  “I shall choose somebody else.  I won’t have you!”

The honorable young gentleman looked unaffectedly relieved.  The petulant young lady turned her back on him, and surveyed the guests at the other extremity of the summer-house.

“Who shall I choose?” she said to herself.

A dark young man—­with a face burned gipsy-brown by the sun; with something in his look and manner suggestive of a roving life, and perhaps of a familiar acquaintance with the sea—­advanced shyly, and said, in a whisper: 

“Choose me!”

Blanche’s face broke prettily into a charming smile.  Judging from appearances, the dark young man had a place in her estimation peculiarly his own.

“You!” she said, coquettishly.  “You are going to leave us in an hour’s time!”

He ventured a step nearer.  “I am coming back,” he pleaded, “the day after to-morrow.”

“You play very badly!”

“I might improve—­if you would teach me.”

“Might you?  Then I will teach you!” She turned, bright and rosy, to her step-mother.  “I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth,” she said.

Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect—­not, this time, on Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick.  He looked at Mr. Brinkworth with a sudden interest and curiosity.  If the lady of the house had not claimed his attention at the moment he would evidently have spoken to the dark young man.

But it was Lady Lundie’s turn to choose a second player on her side.  Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she had her own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the family.  She surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.