"I shall write to Christopher to-morrow," she went on, "and thank him for our outing last night, and I shall say something nice about you and your loneliness, and that he, as a kind of relation, may go and see you on Sunday, as long as he doesn't make love to you, and he can take you to the Zoo--don't see him in your sitting-room. That will give him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and then by those stimulating lions' and tigers' cages you can plight your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on Thursday, if it is all settled." I thanked her as well as I could. She was quite ingenuous and quite sincere. I should be a welcome guest as Christopher's fiancee, and there was no use my feeling bitter about it--she was quite right. As I put my hand on Malcolm's skinny arm going down to the dining-room, the only consolation was my fate had not got to be him. I would rather be anything in the world than married to that! I tried to be agreeable to Sir Charles. We were only a party of six. An old Miss Harpenden, who goes everywhere to play bridge, and Malcolm, and one of Lady Ver's young men, and I. Sir Charles is absent, and brings himself back. He fiddles with the knives and forks, and sprawls on the table rather, too. He looks at Lady Ver with admiration in his eyes. It is true, then, in the intervals of Paris, I suppose, she can make his heart beat. Malcolm made love to me after dinner. We were left to talk when the others sat down to bridge in the little drawing-room. "I missed you so terribly, Miss Travers," he said, priggishly, "when you left us that I realized I was extremely attracted by you." "No, you don't say so!" I said, innocently. "Could one believe a thing like that?" "Yes," he said, earnestly. "You may, indeed, believe it." "Do not say it so suddenly, then," I said, turning my head away so that he could not see how I was laughing. "You see, to a red-haired person like me these compliments go to my head." "Oh, I do not want to flurry you," he said, affably. "I know I have been a good deal sought after--perhaps on account of my possessions"--this with arrogant modesty--"but I am willing to lay everything at your feet if you will marry me." "Everything?" I asked. "Yes, everything." "You are too good, Mr. Montgomerie--but what would your mother say?" He looked uneasy and slightly unnerved. "My mother, I fear, has old-fashioned notions, but I am sure if you went to her dressmaker--you--you would look different." "Should you like me to look different, then? You wouldn't recognize me, you know, if I went to her dressmaker." "I like you just as you are," he said, with an air of great condescension.