"Oh no, I shouldn't!" Ina spoke with a touch of scorn. "I shouldn't like him either less or more, whatever he did. I couldn't. But of course he's extremely eligible, isn't he?" "Does that count with you?" said Piers curiously. She looked at him. "It doesn't with you of course?" she said. "Not in the least," he returned with emphasis. She laughed again, and pushed the remnants of her fan with her foot. "It wouldn't. You're so charmingly young and romantic. Well, mind the doctor doesn't cut you out in your absence! He would be a much more suitable _parti_ for her, you know, both as to age and station. Shall we go back to the ball-room now? I am engaged to Dick for the next dance. I mustn't cut him in his own house." It was an annual affair but quite informal--this Boxing Night dance at the Guyes'. Dick himself called it a survival of his schoolboy days, and it was always referred to in the neighbourhood as "Dick's Christmas party." He and his mother would no more have dreamed of discontinuing the festivity than of foregoing their Christmas dinner, and the Roses of Wardenhurst were invariably invited and as invariably attended it. Piers was not so constant a guest. Dick had thrown him an open invitation on the hunting-field a day or two before, and Piers, having nothing better to do, had decided to present himself. He liked dancing, and was easily the best dancer among the men. He also liked Ina Rose, or at least she had always thought so, till that night. They were friends of the hunting-field rather than of the drawing-room, but they always drifted together wherever they met. Sir Beverley had never troubled himself about the intimacy. The girl belonged to the county, and if not quite the brilliant match for Piers that he would have chosen, she came at least of good old English stock. He knew and liked her father, and he would not have made any very strenuous opposition to an alliance between the two. The girl was well bred and heiress to the Colonel's estate. She would have added considerably to Piers' importance as a landowner, and she knew already how to hold up her head in society. Also, she led a wholesome, outdoor existence, and was not the sort of girl to play with a man's honour. No, on the whole Sir Beverley had no serious objection to the prospect of a marriage between them, save that he had no desire to see Piers married for another five years at feast. But Ina could very well afford to wait five years for such a prize as Piers. Meanwhile, if they cared to get engaged--it would keep the boy out of mischief, and there would be no harm in it.