"You see I was quite civil to him, father. I saw him looking at his watch as if in a hurry to be off; so I suggested making his apologies to you; and we were standing near the door, so it made no disturbance; and my hat was in the hall, and I _was_ so glad to get out into the open air--there was no harm in it, was there, Sue?" No wonder the recipient of so much diplomacy went home radiant. He really--really he,--dashed if he didn't think he had a chance. If he could only work it up--he hummed and hawed and considered. At length: "I'll tell you what, Aunt Laura, it's no use shilly-shallying when there's so little time. If you can bring about one other meeting----" "I have thought of that, George, and have secured the Merivale girls for golf-croquet on Thursday." "Bravo! you don't let the grass grow under your feet. Thursday? That's the last day I have here, but I suppose--no, you could not have done anything sooner." "And I thought you might ride over to-morrow, with my note?" "I say! That would look a bit pointed, wouldn't it?" "Perhaps. But since Leonore was so nice to you to-day----" "Oh, she was. Still----" he hesitated. "What is it, George?--" a trifle impatiently. "It's so beastly hard to tell. She's a dear little thing, and if she had been any one else, I should say she was--was----" and he laughed foolishly. "_Epris?_" "Look here, Aunt Laura, I'm not a fool, and it seems almost uncanny, don't you know?" "Your being in such luck?" "A girl like that! If she were ugly and poor----" "There's no accounting for tastes," quoth Lady Butts, gaily. "Mr. Stubbs--Leonore's first husband--was nothing in particular." "So you think she might take a 'nothing in particular' for her second? But remember she's in a different position now. She has only to lift up her little finger----" "Apparently she has lifted it," Lady Butts laughed and patted his arm. "Do try and infuse some spirit into your faint heart, George. You have had the most wonderful encouragement----" "It's just _that_ which frightens me. I--I don't like the look of it. When a prospectus looks too rosy, we shy at it at Koellners. There's a screw loose somewhere." "But just now you were all up in the air about Leonore?" He was silent. "Could she have done more than she did, George?" "Less would have put things upon a sounder basis." He shook his head gloomily. "A sounder basis? I don't know what you mean, I don't understand those business phrases," cried his aunt, with very natural vexation; "what in the world has 'a sounder basis' to do with Leonore Stubbs?" "I'll tell you;" he roused himself, "I go about the world a good deal, and I know girls--a little. I know this, that it isn't usual for them to make the running so freely on their own account when they are--are--in earnest. When they are in search of scalps, it's different." "Scalps? Oh, I see; I know. But surely Leonore----"