"But Lady Ipsen wasn't," said Eva coolly; "don't trouble to apologise, Lord Saltars, I should not have gone in any case." "No, by Jove, I can see that. You're as proud as a peacock--just like the portrait of Lady Barbara Delham who lived in Queen Anne's reign. And she was a Tartar." Eva began to smile. Saltars was amusing. She saw that he was simply a thoughtless man, who lived for himself alone. He apparently wished to be friendly, so as Eva had no real grudge against him, she unbent. "I don't think we need quarrel," she said. "No, by Jove. But I shan't. Any quarrelling that is to be done must be on your side. There's enough in our family as it is. You should hear how my mother and the dowager Lady Ipsen fight: but then the dowager is a dreadful old cat," he finished candidly. "I have never seen her." "You wouldn't forget her if you did. She's beaked like a parrot, and talks like one. She and I don't hit it off. She's one of what they call the old school, whatever that means, and she thinks I'm a low person--like a groom. What do you think?" Lord Saltars was not unlike a groom in some ways, but his good nature and candour amused Eva. "I am not a person to judge," she said, smiling. "By Jove, you might have been, though," said he, fixing his small grey eyes on her; "supposing you became Lady Saltars?" "There's not the slightest chance of that," said Eva coldly. "There isn't now: but there might have been. And after all, why not now, if things are what your father said they were?" Miss Strode drew herself up. She thought he was going too far. "I really don't know what you mean. I am engaged to be married." "I know; to a fellow called Hill. Your father told me." "Lord Saltars, did you meet my father after he came home?" "Of course I did. He called to see me when he came to London, and corresponded with me long before that. I say, do you remember when I came to see you at Wargrove?" "Yes. We did not get on well together." "By Jove, no more we did! That was a pity, because I came to see what kind of a wife you'd make." "You're very kind," said Eva indignantly, "but I'm not on the market to be examined like a horse." "Haw--haw," laughed the other, slapping his knee, "that's the kind of thing the dowager would say. Don't get waxy, Eva--Miss Strode then, though I wish you'd call me Herbert and I'd call you Eva." "I shall call you Lord Saltars." "Saltars without the confounded lord," urged the man pertinaciously. "No; go on. What were you saying? Yes, that you came to see what sort of a wife I'd make. Who told you to?" "Your father." "I don't believe it." "It's true, though. Your father wanted you to marry me. He kept writing to me from South Africa to keep me up to the scratch, and said he was gathering a fortune for us both. When he came home he called on me and told me you had some folly in your head about this chap Hill, and----"