‘I’m awfully glad to hear it, I’m sure, for your sake,’ Nora answered unconcernedly. ‘I thought you would be, Nora; I was sure you would be. Naturally, it’s a matter that touches us both very closely. You see, as you’re to inherit Orange Grove, and as I’m to inherit Pimento Valley, Uncle Theodore and I think it would be a great pity that the two old estates—the estates bound up so intimately with the name and fame of the fighting Dupuys—should ever be divided or go out of the family. So we’ve agreed together, Uncle Theodore and I, that I should—well, that I should endeavour to unite them by mutual arrangement.’ ‘I don’t exactly understand,’ Nora said, as yet quite unsuspicious of his real meaning. ‘Why, you know, Nora, a man can’t live upon sugar and rum alone.’ ‘Certainly not,’ Nora interrupted; ‘even if he’s a confirmed drunkard, it would be quite impossible. He must have something solid occasionally to eat as well.’ ‘Ah, yes,’ Tom said, in a sentimental tone, endeavouring to rise as far as he was able to the height of the occasion. ‘And he must have something more than that too, Nora: he must have sympathy; he must have affection: he must have a companion in life; he must have somebody, you know, to sit at the head of his table, and to—to—to’—— ‘To pour out tea for him,’ Nora suggested blandly, filling his cup a second time. Tom reddened a little. It wasn’t exactly the idea he wanted, and he began to have a faint undercurrent of suspicion that Nora was quietly laughing at him in her sleeve. ‘Ah, well, to pour out tea for him,’ he went on, somewhat suspiciously; ‘and to share his joys and sorrows, and his hopes and aspirations’—— ‘About the sugar-crop?’ Nora put in once more, with provoking calmness. ‘Well, Nora, you may smile if you like,’ Tom said warmly; ‘but this is a very serious subject, I can tell you, for both of us. What I mean to say is that Uncle Theodore and I have settled it would be a very good thing indeed if we two were to get up a match between us.’ ‘A match between you,’ Nora echoed in a puzzled manner—‘a match between papa and you, Tom! What at? Billiards? Cricket? Long jumping?’ Tom fairly lost his temper. ‘Nonsense, Nora,’ he said testily. ‘You know as well what I mean as I do. Not a match between Uncle Theodore and me, but a match between you and me—the heir and heiress of Orange Grove and Pimento Valley.’ Nora stared at him with irrepressible laughter twinkling suddenly out of all the corners of her merry little mouth and puckered eyelids. ‘Between you and me, Tom,’ she repeated incredulously—‘between you and me, did you say? Between you and me now? Why, Tom, do you really mean this for a sort of an offhand casual proposal?’