“I’m quite sure that I don’t deserve to,” he answered, still looking down at her.

“If you did deserve to, being a woman, I probably shouldn’t let you,” said Victoria, flashing a look upwards; “as it is, you may.”

His face lighted, but she halted in the grass, with her hands behind her, and stared at him with a puzzled expression.

“I’m sure you’re a dangerous man,” she declared.  “First you take in poor little Hastings, and now you’re trying to take me in.”

“Then I wish I were still more dangerous,” he laughed, “for apparently I haven’t succeeded.”

“I want to talk to you seriously,” said Victoria; “that is the only reason I’m permitting you to drive me home.”

“I am devoutly thankful for the reason then,” he said,—­“my horse is tied in the field.”

“And aren’t you going to say good-by to your host and hostess?”

“Hostess?” he repeated, puzzled.

“Hostesses,” she corrected herself, “Mrs. Pomfret and Alice.  I thought you had eyes in your head,” she added, with a fleeting glance at them.

“Is Crewe engaged to Miss Pomfret?” he asked.

“Are all men simpletons?” said Victoria.  “He doesn’t know it yet, but he is.”

“I think I’d know it, if I were,” said Austen, with an emphasis that made her laugh.

“Sometimes fish don’t know they’re in a net until—­until the morning after,” said Victoria.  “That has a horribly dissipated sound—­hasn’t it?  I know to a moral certainty that Mr. Crewe will eventually lead Miss Pomfret away from the altar.  At present,” she could not refrain from adding, “he thinks he’s in love with some one else.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied.  “Humphrey’s perfectly happy, because he believes most women are in love with him, and he’s making up his mind in that magnificent, thorough way of his whether she is worthy to be endowed with his heart and hand, his cows, and all his stocks and bonds.  He doesn’t know he’s going to marry Alice.  It almost makes one a Calvinist, doesn’t it.  He’s predestined, but perfectly happy.”

“Who is he in love with?” demanded Austen, ungrammatically.

“I’m going to say good-by to him.  I’ll meet you in the field, if you don’t care to come.  It’s only manners, after all, although the lemonade’s all gone and I haven’t had a drop.”

“I’ll go along too,” he said.

“Aren’t you afraid of Mrs. Pomfret?”

“Not a bit!”

“I am,” said Victoria, “but I think you’d better come just the same.”

Around the corner of the house they found them,—­Mr. Crewe urging the departing guests to remain, and not to be bashful in the future about calling.