"Your arm." "My arm's all right," he assured her cheerfully. "Do lean back. Hope I'm not in the way. Of course if you'd rather I went and sat at the other end of the gallery I'll do so. Only it will be a bit slow." "Mr. Gage, how absurd you are." "Yes," he agreed, "the suggestion is rather far-fetched. We may as well keep within kissing distance, mayn't we?" "Oh, but it is not proper," Ethel protested. "Kissing?" he asked in surprise, "I think it is proper; if you are going in for a proper time. Why not?" "It is," she answered demurely, "between some people." "People who know how to make the time pass?" he suggested. "People who are--engaged," she said, with as much indifference to the immediate and personal application as she could assume. "Well," he rejoined flippantly, "you are engaged, and I may be." "Mr. Gage!" She turned on him indignantly. "I am not engaged." "Not to Sharnbrook?" "Mr. Gage, how absurd you are." "I hope so. Are you engaged?" he asked significantly. "Whether I am engaged or free," she answered, "it is all the same to you." "No," he returned, "if you were a little more free it would be quite different." "Would it?" she asked, with a provocative glance at his face. "Wouldn't it? Like this." He closed his arm round her and tried to draw her to him. "Oh, Mr. Gage, you don't mean it," she protested, holding back. "Come!" he said. "One kiss." "Oh, no. It wouldn't be right," she still objected. Then she sighed. "Poor Jack!" "Ah, poor fellow," Peckover said, with a hardly suppressed grin. "Poor old Sharnbrook." "He is very fond of me," she said, regretfully. "But of course if I can't care for him as much as I ought to--I don't know what the poor fellow will do." "Give me something handsome, I hope," was Peckover's thought. "Ethel," he whispered, and this time did get something like a kiss. "Percy, it is wrong of you," she murmured. "I know it is," he admitted, drawing in a breath as of pain. "Poor old Sharnbrook; and he thinks I'm his friend. He'll never give you up," he added with conviction. For an instant Miss Ethel's look suggested that that matter might be safely left in her hands to bring to a satisfactory conclusion. But it swiftly passed away, and she said, "Jack Sharnbrook is a good fellow. He will not stand in the way of my happiness." "That he won't, I'll go bail," said Peckover to himself. "Ethel!" he murmured caressingly. "Oh, Mr. Gage," she returned, in half-yielding protest. "Percy, darling," he suggested, drawing her to him for another kiss. "You must wait," she objected, "till we are engaged." "We Gages never wait," he assured her softly. "It's a tradition in the family. No. We don't hang about for the mistletoe to grow." Nevertheless the present representative of that impatient race had to postpone his endearments, for the door opened softly and Miss Dagmar's scandalized voice cried, "Oh, Ethel!" making the fond pair start aside with electric unanimity.