or our own
secret a little while."

The golf course being deserted, he pressed her arm.

"We'll tell her whenever you like, dear," he replied.

In spite of the fact that they drove Joshua's trotter to lunch--much too
rapidly in the heat of the day, they were late.

"I shall never be able to go in there and not give it away," he
whispered to her on the stairs.

"You look like the Cheshire cat in the tree," whispered Honora,
laughing, "only more purple, and not so ghostlike."

"I know I'm smiling," replied Howard, "I feel like it, but I can't help
it. It won't come off. I want to blurt out the news to every one in the
dining-room--to that little Frenchman, in particular."

Honora laughed again. Her imagination easily summoned up the tableau
which such a proceeding would bring forth. The incredulity, the chagrin,
the indignation, even, in some quarters. He conceived the household,
with the exception of the Vicomte, precipitating themselves into his
arms.

Honora, who was cool enough herself (no doubt owing to the superior
training which women receive in matters of deportment), observed that
his entrance was not a triumph of dissimulation. His colour was high,
and his expression, indeed, a little idiotic; and he declared afterwards
that he felt like a sandwich-man, with the news printed in red letters
before and behind. Honora knew that the intense improbability of the
truth would save them, and it did. Mrs. Holt remarked, slyly, that the
game of golf must have hidden attractions, and regretted that she was
too old to learn it.

"We went very slowly on account of the heat," Howard declared.

"I should say that you had gone very rapidly, from your face," retorted
Mrs. Holt. In relaxing moods she indulged in banter.

Honora stepped into the breach. She would not trust her newly acquired
fiance to extricate himself.

"We were both very much worried, Mrs. Holt," she explained, "because we
were late for lunch once before."

"I suppose I'll have to forgive you, my dear, especially with that
colour. I am modern enough to approve of exercise for young girls, and
I am sure your Aunt Mary will think Silverdale has done you good when I
send you back to her."

"Oh, I'm sure she will," said Honora.

In the meantime Mr. Spence was concentrating all of his attention upon
a jellied egg. Honora glanced at the Vicomte. He sat very stiff, and his
manner of twisting his mustache reminded her of an animal sharpening
its claw