"All right," replied Dagmar hopefully. "Then I relieve guard, and you turn out. I take up the running and so on alternately, till one of us lands him." "Which shall not be so very long first," she promised herself. "Let's find out where he is." Ethel, with business-like promptitude, sprang to the bell and rang it. "Of course," she observed complacently, "whichever of us does not bag Gage will have the reversion of Quorn or old Sharnbrook." "Of course," Dagmar agreed with a suggested determination that the privilege in question should not be hers. "Fancy Sharnbrook! Ferrets in one's bedroom." "Rats where you least expect them," Ethel chimed in, hilarious at what she was resolved should be her sister's fate. "That idiotic one-legged partridge," cried Dagmar. "Pet mice asleep in your boots," responded Ethel. "Pattern of the carpet undecipherable for fox-terriers." "Wouldn't I put my foot down on them," declared Ethel grimly. "Is Mr. Gage visible yet, Bisgood?" she inquired of the butler who now appeared. A very faint film of suppressed amusement seemed to spread over the well regulated face of Mr. Bisgood. "Mr. Gage went out riding this morning," he answered woodenly. "His lordship accompanied him." "Have they returned?" Again the haze of enjoyment seemed to blur the suave features. "No, miss," Bisgood answered, and there might have been detected a slight, ever so slight, catch in the unctuous voice; "Mr. Gage did not get far. Harlequin was rather fresh." "Did--did anything go wrong?" It was Dagmar who asked the question. This time there was no doubt about the abnormal expression on the butler's sleek face. "Well, miss," he replied, with an apologetic grin, "I believe Mr. Gage came off." Without trusting his dignity to carry him through any elaboration of the bare and pointed statement, Bisgood, turned abruptly from the room. Miss Ethel tried to laugh off a certain sense of annoyance. Till she had tried and failed Gage was more or less her property. "Poor Gage," she exclaimed. "Fancy his taking a toss. I hope he has not damaged himself. That brute Harlequin!" "Now, Dagmar, dear, honour between--knaves. You will take Quorn and Sharnbrook off while I have my innings, won't you? I'll do as much for you." "All right," she answered, still rather sulky. "But mind, no unfair advantage. No running me down, or falling into his arms." "No, no," Ethel assured her; "that's a last resort. We may have to toss for that later on." "There's mother coming across the lawn," Dagmar remarked with a yawn of indifference. "You had better be off and console the noble sportsman."