Hal tried not to seem too offhand, but it was quite impossible for her to gush, and she could not pretend a sudden affection just because of the engagement. So she just said something about Dudley being very happy, and hoped they would have good luck, and then went to the sitting-room to talk to Basil, entertaining him immensely with her account of the day’s ceremony, and her haphazard friendship with the “flying man”, who was going to take her in his aeroplane. “Who was he?” Basil asked. “Has he won any prizes?” “I don’t know. He did not tell me. I did not discover his name either, but he was some relation of the ‘Lord-of-the-Manor’ person who received the King.” “You don’t know his name?” asked Doris in a shocked voice. “Weren’t you introduced?” “Never a bit of it,” laughed Hal. “I was left behind when the last fly had gone to the station, and he heard me asking anxiously how soon one would get back again, and immediately offered me a seat in the motor he was going in. Another man was with him, a much be-medalled officer, who was somewhat heavy in hand to talk to, and at the station we gave him the slip.” “How can he take you for a fly if you don’t know who he is?” “Well, I dare say he won’t; quite likely he didn’t mean it; but if he did, he can easily find me at the office. He knew my name, and what paper I was there for. They both knew, which probably accounts for the gentleman with the medals being somewhat ponderous—soldiers are usually snobbish—and he may not have liked having to ride to the station with a newspaper woman.” “But if the other man was the Lord of the Manor’s brother?” “Oh, that wouldn’t make any difference. He might very well be less self-important than anything in a bit of scarlet and medals if he had been the Lord of the Manor himself. Why, the Earl of Roxley got tea for me, and was most attentive.” Doris’s eyes opened wider. She had always secretly entertained rather a superior attitude towards Hal and her sister, and was glad she was not an office clerk. The big, breezy, working world, where the individual is taken on his or her merits apart from birth, or standing, or occupation, was quite unknown to her; and that Hal’s original, attractive personality might open doors for ever shut to her mediocre, pretty young-ladyhood, would never enter her mind. “I don’t think I should care to talk to any one without being introduced,” she remarked a little affectedly, to which Hal shrugged her shoulders and commented: “It’s just as well you haven’t to knock about in the world, then. Any one with an ounce of common sense and perspicacity knows when it is safe, and when it is sheer folly.” Basil watched her with an amused air. “I’m sure you do,” he said.