"What breed?" he inquired further. "Now, Francis," Phyllis said, "don’t begin a lot of your tiresome farming questions. Hazel, how brown it must all look! I suppose one can hardly notice whether your hair is down or not. But why do you have it down for week-ends?" "The boys," Hazel explained laconically. "It entices them to tease and call me names if I have it up. Besides," she added resignedly, "they only take it down, so what is the use?" "So should I," observed Francis lazily. "I wouldn’t have it up now, if I were Charteris." "But you look so fearfully young," she complained. "And you must remember that I—I am an engaged wo—, that I am engaged, you know," she amended. "Perhaps I shall be in four or five years’ time," Phyllis said, with a little eager bounce of anticipated pleasure. "Oh, I wish the time would come." "Phyllis!" poor Doris remonstrated, appalled. "Be young while you can, dear," she urged. "Hazel does not look any the older for it," retorted Phyllis. "Oh, Hazel, do tell us some of his pet names for you." Hazel gasped and glanced hurriedly at Paul. Paul, who had not caught Phyllis’s words, smiled at her and wondered within himself whether he read her glance aright: it seemed to appeal to him for help. Francis came to the rescue. "Look here, Phyllis," he expostulated, "don’t make any more of an _enfant terrible_ of yourself than you need. I say," he continued, tactfully seeking to change the conversation, "how sick Digby will be when he hears that you called." This announcement effectually turned the current of Hazel’s thoughts. She tried to appear properly concerned, but relief and gratitude were all that Francis could read in the look she turned upon him. Paul somehow contrived to bring Mrs. Travers and himself nearer the sofa, and the conversation became general. When the adieux were made, Phyllis’s contrite look was rewarded by an extra good-bye kiss and a forgiving little squeeze of Hazel’s hand. *CHAPTER XIX* But that was to befall which gave Hazel cause to wish that Digby Travers had been present, during Paul’s and her visit to his father’s house. It would have proved uncomfortable, embarrassing, a sore trial of endurance for the moment; but once over, once the inevitable first meeting after the event of the engagement was ended, she could but have felt immensely relieved, albeit her heart would have ached with compassion for the poor young man, if, indeed, she saw reason for such emotion. She was always buoyed with the comfort of that doubt. Perhaps he was no "lover." He and Paul were as the poles asunder; and Hazel could not doubt Paul. Therefore, either Digby was not in love with her, or there were many sorts of lovers and many grades of being in love. Paul seemed to be of a somewhat high grade, she thought.