“Let me introduce you to Miss Holmes, Quatermain,” he said.  “She is anxious that you should take her in to dinner, if you will be so kind.  She is very interested in—­in——­”

“Africa,” I suggested.

“In Mr. Quatermain, who, I am told, is one of the greatest hunters in Africa,” she corrected me, with a dazzling smile.

I bowed, not knowing what to say.  Lord Ragnall laughed and vanished, leaving us together.  Dinner was announced.  Presently we were wending in the centre of a long and glittering procession across the central hall to the banqueting chamber, a splendid room with a roof like a church that was said to have been built in the times of the Plantagenets.  Here Mr. Savage, who evidently had been looking out for her future ladyship, conducted us to our places, which were upon the left of Lord Ragnall, who sat at the head of the broad table with Lady Longden on his right.  Then the old clergyman, Dr. Jeffreys, a pompous and rather frowsy ecclesiastic, said grace, for grace was still in fashion at such feasts in those days, asking Heaven to make us truly thankful for the dinner we were about to consume.

Certainly there was a great deal to be thankful for in the eating and drinking line, but of all I remember little, except a general vision of silver dishes, champagne, splendour, and things I did not want to eat being constantly handed to me.  What I do remember is Miss Holmes, and nothing but Miss Holmes; the charm of her conversation, the light of her beautiful eyes, the fragrance of her hair, her most flattering interest in my unworthy self.  To tell the truth, we got on “like fire in the winter grass,” as the Zulus say, and when that dinner was over the grass was still burning.

I don’t think that Lord Ragnall quite liked it, but fortunately Lady Longden was a talkative person.  First she conversed about her cold in the head, sneezing at intervals, poor soul, and being reduced to send for another handkerchief after the entrees.  Then she got off upon business matters; to judge from the look of boredom on her host’s face, I think it must have been of settlements.  Three times did I hear him refer her to the lawyers—­without avail.  Lastly, when he thought he had escaped, she embarked upon a quite vigorous argument with Dr. Jeffreys about church matters—­I gathered that she was “low” and he was “high”—­in which she insisted upon his lordship acting as referee.

“Do try and keep your attention fixed, George,” I heard her say severely.  “To allow it to wander when high spiritual affairs are under discussion (sneeze) is scarcely reverent.  Could you tell the man to shut that door?  The draught is dreadful.  It is quite impossible for you to agree with both of us, as you say you do, seeing that metaphorically Dr. Jeffreys is at one pole and I am at the other.” (Sneeze.)

“Then I wish I were at the Tropic of Cancer,” I heard him mutter with a groan.

In vain; he had to keep his “attention fixed” on this point for the next three-quarters of an hour.  So as Miss Manners was at the other side of me, and Scroope, unhampered by the presence of any prospective mother-in-law, was at the other side of her, for all practical purposes Miss Holmes and I were left alone.