"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are." "I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage." "No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture." "And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself bound." "I have never proposed anything else." "Your conduct with Claudia--" "I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us remember our manners, if nothing else." "And our principles," added Kate haughtily. "By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this conversation may as well end, may it not?" Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house. Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the accession of Bob Territon. "Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced. "So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a terrible time." "Why?" "It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week. The match is fixed for next Wednesday." "But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play." "I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?" "No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day. I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist, the deluge!" "I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do." "Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg." "Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you." "I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene looked up. Morewood nodded slightly. "Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre. "In his room--at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting." "Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick." "I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick. "You're a very rude _old_ gentleman! But you must play, all the same--against Bob and Mr. Morewood." "Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady Claudia?" The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was left with him for a moment. "Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock." "Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask you a question." "Oh! Is it a question that no one else--say Kate, for instance--could help you with?" "It's not about myself."