“I see, miss,” said the man a little impressed. “I know his lordship. I have often seen him at Seahampton.” “Now I think you had better go,” said Kate, “before you receive any fresh instructions.” The man chuckled, swung himself into the seat of the second car beside the driver and first one and then the other of the great lorries, moved slowly down the white road. She watched them until the last one had passed the crest of the hill, then she slowly descended the zig-zag path. She met Gregori in the doorway. “Where have you been, Kate?” he demanded. “I have been to see the loot off,” she said flippantly. “The less you are seen, the better,” he grumbled. “I told that ass, Mulberry, not to let the man catch a glimpse of you. Don’t go in, I want to talk to you.” He was ill at ease and evidently found it difficult to make a beginning. “You know, Kate, I am very fond of you,” he said. “You have every reason to be.” “I still have,” he said. “I am not so sure of that,” she interrupted, “but go on.” “What do you mean by that?” he asked suspiciously. “Go on,” she demanded; “where does your fondness lead?” “It leads to your marrying me,” he said; “your uncle does not object and we will be married as soon as we reach South America.” “South America!” she stared at him. “So that is our destination, is it?” she said slowly. “And I am to marry you when we arrive, by arrangement with my uncle?” “That’s about the size of it,” replied Gregori. “And suppose I make other arrangements?” “There are no other arrangements you can make,” he said with easy confidence; “the fact is, Kate, that you have to drop these high and mighty manners of yours. We stood them very well because it paid us to stand them, I suppose. But we are all in the same boat--and shall be literally.” He laughed aloud at the sally. “You hold some queer views, you know, and we can’t afford to let you run loose.” She jerked up her head and turned abruptly away and would have left him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back. “When I say you must marry me,” he said, “I mean just what I say.” “Have I a voice in this arrangement?” she asked, slowly disengaging her arm. “You have a voice in it if you agree. You have no voice if you cut up rough.” “I see,” she said. “I will think about it. This is not a decision which I can arrive at in a minute.” She went to her room and locked the door. At five o’clock that evening her uncle came for her. “Have you been to sleep?” he asked. It was curious, she thought, how the manner and even the tone of these men had changed in the past few hours. She was so used to an attitude of deference, almost sycophantic, which they ordinarily displayed, that the change had come in the nature of a shock. And there was a change. Even her uncle had dropped his mask of good-nature and now treated her as a child, and a child that needed to be disciplined. “I have been thinking,” she said.