“Now you’re getting sarcastic, mummie.” Gwen went up and put her arm round her mother’s neck. “Don’t you get sarcastic with Gwennie, mummie, because she’s just all right underneath. It’s only on the top die’s queer. Because you thought you were going to rear a stately swan, and found you had only a wicked duckling, you needn’t frown and pucker up in that fashion. Stately swans are very tedious, and wicked ducklings do at least keep you going; so you ought really to go down on your knees and thank the good Providence that spared you the monotony of perpetually sailing about with your neck at an uncomfortable angle. Don’t you think so, Lawrie? Now, I’ll go and see his Earlship and be good. To him I shall put the case differently, and explain how infinitely preferable the calm of the stately swan is, beside the tiresome duckling,”—and she crossed the large drawing-room to the door. Here, however, she turned again. “Lawrie.” “Yes.” “Do you know, I’ve an odd notion that if you haven’t already fallen in love with that Irish, country-bumpkin girl, you very shortly will!” and without giving him time to reply she vanished. CHAPTER XXIV Lawrence Hears Some News. “Now, you know this is very foolish,” said Gwen. When she entered the library Earl Selloyd had hastened to meet her with exaggerated courtesy, and dragged forward a big arm-chair, begging her to be seated. Gwen poised herself on the arm of it, and swung one foot. “Very foolish, indeed!” she repeated, eyeing gravely the thin, nervous, foolish-looking young man, who, nevertheless, represented one of the oldest and most illustrious families of England. “I hope you don’t mean that,” he said. “Indeed, Miss Carew, it is only your happiness I have at heart.” “And a little your own, I hope,” with a faint smile. Then she went on before he could interrupt: “You know I have the name for being very original, Lord Selloyd, and I’m going to be original now. You’ve evidently come here this evening to propose to me, and I’m not going to let you propose. I’m not the sort of girl who likes to count up her conquests and tell all the other girls. All I ask of things generally just now is, let me have a good time, and I don’t care whether I get any proposal or not. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to want to give me your name and title and all that, but since I can’t accept them, we won’t say any more about it.” “But my dear Miss Carew,” he implored, “your mother led me to suppose that she—” “That doesn’t count,” interrupted Gwen. “To be very candid, you know as well as I do that no mother can help fancying a coronet for her daughter, and it’s just the same the world over. Now, although I’m supposed to be very up to date, I’m really positively antique about some things, and one of them is the question of matrimony. I’m so old-fashioned that I mean to marry for love, even if I marry a plain Mr Nobody. There! now you must see that it is a mistake to continue this interview.”