[Illustration: "That night at dinner she was very gay—a charming, sparkling, bewildering creature."] "Certainly I’m bowled over," he admitted cheerfully to himself. "She is the cunnin’est thing that ever missed a pheasant; but she’s found me, all right, with both barrels, and the sky’s full of feathers, and I’m on the sod, kickin’." Me managed to tell her so that evening, in language sportsmanlike and picturesque, before they cut for partners at auction. She was standing on the stairs, two steps up; he below her, with his handsome face lifted. "All you’ve got to do is to send your dogs forward, and retrieve me, Diana. I’m grassed in the open in plain sight." "Suppose I _should_ take you up, Scott?" "Is it a go?" She smiled down at him. "Take care, young man. I’m approaching spinsterhood at a terrifying speed. How do you know that I may not clutch wildly at you?" "For Heaven’s sake, clutch!" he urged her. "How? Shall I roll up my eyes and whisper, ’Oh, Scott!’—or shall I take a flying leap at you from here, and rope you before you can get away? Instruct me, please, because I really don’t know as much about such customs as perhaps you think I do." "Take the flyer, Diana; I’ll catch you. Are you ready? Come on; be a sport!" "I can’t be a sport, Scott. I try; I make a brave effort to be cigaretteful and naughty, but—I’m ashamed to say it isn’t in me. Now you’ll run, I suppose." "After you—yes.... Diana, I do love you. I haven’t said it right, that’s all. Will you marry me and make somethin’ out of me besides a loafin’ lout in puttees?" "Oh, Scott, you’re so beautiful in puttees! I wouldn’t make anything else out of you if I could; you must be perfectly gorgeous in pink." "Come down to the next hunt ball and see. They’re a fine bunch at Meadowbrook. You’ll like ’em; maybe you’ll learn to like me." "I do now, you scatter-brain! I adore you, Scott; but, you know, love is a different game." "That’ll come all right," he protested. "When you’re the missus, and you see me come a cropper over five bars, you’ll suddenly wake up to find you love hubby. And I won’t be hurt, but you’ll think I am, and you’ll pull up and scramble down and look me over, and cover my pale and beautiful face with kisses and—I’ll play foxy and let you," he ended with pleased satisfaction. The smile on her face had suddenly become fixed: for what he was saying had conjured up a vision of the polo field, and a young fellow in white picking himself up from the trampled sod. Wallace, looking around to see that the hall was empty, sprang up the two steps and took her hand in his. "Diana, I do love you dearly," he said. "Will you take me on for a trial gallop?" "Do you mean an engagement?" she said, looking him over. "Yes, I do; will you?" "What kind of an engagement?" "The regular—with a sparkler on the side. Will you, Di?" "No, you very slangy young man, I won’t."