"But he's a solitary inventor, and you are fond of society. Isn't it rather the coupling of the quick and the dead." "What horrid things you say!" she retorted heatedly. "Of course, if I marry Dicky I shall shake him into a more companionable person. He's got plenty of money, and I daresay when he finishes this airship he'll come out of his shell. The only way I can make him talk is by making him jealous, so I am waiting for Mr. Marr to flirt with." "Then you are really using Mr. Marr as a stalking-horse to secure Dicky?" "Well, I am, in a way. But if Dicky will go on being so silly, and sitting as mum as an owl, I shall marry the stalking horse." "No, Mabel, don't do that; marry for love." "I can't afford to, you silly man. Cannington and I haven't sixpence between us. And what do you know about love?" "I know all about it," I whispered proudly. "I'm engaged." "Oh, Cyrus!" Her eyes shone like stars, and she gasped. "Who is she?" "A lady called Miss Gertrude Monk, who lives at Burwain." Before Mabel could ask further questions, Cannington's sharp ear caught the name, and he called out to me. "Vance, I have just been talking to Dicky here about Burwain, and he thinks it will be the very place to establish his workshop. Come and tell him all about it." "Bother!" murmured Lady Mabel "when I want to hear all about your love affair. Is she pretty?" "More than pretty. She is an angel." "Oh, all men say that of a girl before marriage: all except Dicky, that is. I have never managed to get him enthusiastic enough to call _me_ an angel." "Perhaps he thinks it goes without speaking, Mabel, and----" "Vance! Vance!" called out Cannington impatiently, and I had to obey the summons. Lady Mabel pouted and betook herself to the tea-table as Lady Denham requested, at the eleventh hour, a fresh cup. "Tell me all about Burwain, Vance," commanded Dicky in his pleasant voice. I did my best, and drew as vivid a word picture as I was able. When Weston heard of the absence of a railway station, of large tracts of common, and of the sparsity of population, he rubbed his hands. "It's capital," he remarked. "I shall go down next week and lease a portion of the common, outside the village. Then I shall run up a high fence, and take down by rail all the parts of my machine. It won't take long to put together. Then we can all take a fly to the moon." "Not me," said Mabel firmly. "I don't want to be smashed up." "That isn't a compliment to my invention," said Dicky hotly, "but I suppose you'll come down and see me start?" "That means I shall come down to say good-bye," she replied smiling. "Oh, Dicky, you're a dear boy when you are sensible: but this airship rubbish----" "Mabel, I thought you admired my airship?" he expostulated indignantly. "How can I, when I have never seen it. Besides, a woman never admires anything that takes the attention of a man off herself."