There was no one in view at the moment who could be supposed by any stretch of imagination to come up to even an unconventional idea of a peer of the realm, nevertheless the sanguine Dagmar pushed her sister away. The first sight of the waiting coronet was for her alone. "Never you mind, Ethel," she said roughly, "I am quite competent to look out for him. You amuse yourself with Mr. Sharnbrook." Mr. Sharnbrook meanwhile was experiencing some difficulty in arranging a decent veil over his satisfaction. "By Jove, they've jumped at Quorn," he told himself gleefully. "If only--I say, Ethel," he said with sudden affection, to test the new phase of the situation. Ethel pushed away the arm which had recklessly found its way round her, until lately inviting, waist. "Don't be absurd, Mr. Sharnbrook," she protested snappishly. "I shouldn't have been absurd just now," he retorted pointedly. "You didn't take your chance, and you've lost it." The fact that she turned haughtily away prevented her seeing an uncomplimentary look of joyful relief in her recalcitrant lover's face. If only this Lord Quorn were a decent fellow and would back him up. "What a time father is at that stupid club," Dagmar exclaimed impatiently. "And we have got to go to Babbleton. We've no excuse for not going now the rain has so provokingly stopped." "Let's go and rout father out, and get back soon," Ethel suggested, not a whit behind her in eagerness. "Come along, then, dear," said Dagmar, giving a preparatory look at herself in the glass. "Aren't you going to take your young man with us?" she added with a view to her sister's annoyance. "Oh, you don't want to come, do you, Mr. Sharnbrook?" Ethel said with a somewhat obvious lack of cordiality. "To Babbleton? Not exactly," replied the wary Sharnbrook with so much fervour that Dagmar laughed unpleasantly. His principal desire now was to get into the middle of a ten-acre field and sing a pæan. "Come on, then, Dagmar," his _soi-disante fiancée_ said with a toss of the head. Dagmar drew back, however. "Say good-bye to your dear Jack," she suggested with ill-timed humour. "I won't look." Ethel's face, under the fun, made Sharnbrook rejoice more than ever at the chance which, properly worked, might obviate any claim on his part to that ungratifying physiognomy. "Dagmar! How absurd you are; Mr. Sharnbrook does not appreciate the joke." "Indeed!" her sister retorted in a voice which might, without violating the fitness of things, have been pitched somewhat lower. "I thought he was the only person who tried to see a joke in your engagement." "Ethel!" He called her back mischievously, secure in his good fortune. "I was going to Carter's about a ring." "Oh," she replied with a not very gracious nod, "that can wait. Catch me," she said to herself as she hurried after Dagmar, "catch me wearing an engagement ring while there is a bachelor peer in the house."