Reggie gazed once more at the point of his boot. "The thing is," he remarked, "are your friends Mr. and Miss Bundercombe at all?" "Don't talk rot!" "It may be rot," Reggie admitted slowly, "or it may not. By the by, where did you meet them?" "If you don't mind," I answered, "we won't discuss them any longer." "At least," Reggie insisted, "will you tell me this: Where have they been staying in London? I shall go there and see whether they have left any address for letters to be forwarded." "I shall tell you nothing," I decided. "As a matter of fact I am finding you rather a nuisance." Reggie picked up his hat. "There is something more in this," he said didactically, "than meets the eye!" "Machiavellian!" I scoffed. "Be off, Reggie!" I had tea with Eve that afternoon and broached the subject of Reggie's visit as delicately as I could. "You remember Lord Reggie Sidley?" I asked. "Lord Reggie what!" Eve exclaimed. "Sidley," I repeated firmly. "He spent three weeks with you out at your home in Okata. His threatened arrival last night was the cause of your father's precipitate retreat, and yours." "Oh, that young man!" Eve remarked airily. "Well, what about him?" "He has been round to see me this morning," I told her--"wanted your address." She sighed. "London will be getting too hot for us soon!" she murmured. "Am I engaged to him or anything?" "Eve," I said, "when are you going to let me announce our engagement?" "Our what?" she demanded. "Engagement," I repeated. "I have proposed to you two or three times. I will do it again if you like." "Pray don't!" she begged. "You are not going to tell me, are you," she added, looking at me with wide-open eyes, "that I have accepted you?" "You haven't refused me," I pointed out. "If I haven't," she assured me, "it has been simply to save your feelings." I gulped down a little rising storm of indignation. "You must marry sometime. Eve," I said. "There isn't any one in America, is there?" "There are a great many," she assured me. "It was to get away from them, as much as anything, that I came over with father on this business trip." "Business trip!" I groaned. "Oh! I dare say it all seems very disgraceful to any one like you--you who were born with plenty of money and have never been obliged to earn any, and have mixed with respectable people all your life!" she exclaimed. "All the same, let me tell you there are plenty of charming and delightful people going about the world earning their living by their wits--simply because they are forced to. There is more than one code of morals, you know." I flatter myself that at this point I was tactful.