Eustace greeted his hostess with lofty courtesy, and passed on
straight to her side.

She turned and tingled at his approach; he was looking more princely than
ever. Instinctively she rose.

"What do you want to get up for?" demanded her mother sharply.

Sir Eustace reached his little trembling _fiancee_, and took the eager
hand she stretched to him. His blue eyes flashed their fierce flame over
her upturned, quivering face. "Take me into the kitchen--anywhere!" he
murmured. "I want you to myself."

She nodded. "Don't you want any tea? All right. Dad doesn't either. I'll
clear away."

"No, you don't!" her mother said. "You sit down and behave yourself!
You'll clear when I tell you to; not before."

Sir Eustace wheeled round to her, the flame of his look turning to ice.
"With your permission, madam," he said with extreme formality, "Dinah and
I are going to retire to talk things over."

He had his way. It was obvious that he meant to have it. He motioned to
Dinah with an imperious gesture to precede him, and she obeyed, not
daring to glance in her mother's direction.

Mrs. Bathurst said no more. Something in Sir Eustace's bearing seemed to
quell her. She watched him go with eyes that shone with a hot resentment
under drawn brows. It took Isabel's utmost effort to charm her back to a
mood less hostile.

As for Dinah, she led her _fiance_ back to her father's den in
considerable trepidation. To be compelled to resist her mother's will was
a state of affairs that filled her with foreboding.

But the moment she was alone with him she forgot all but the one
tremendous fact of his presence, for with the closing of the door he had
her in his arms.

She clung to him desperately close, feeling as one struggling in deep
waters, caught in a great current that would bear her swiftly,
irresistibly,--whither?

He laughed at her trembling with careless amusement. "What, still scared,
my brown elf? Where is your old daring? Aren't you allowed to have any
spirit at all in this house?"

She answered him incoherently, straining to keep her face hidden out of
reach of his upturning hand. "No,--no, it's not that. You don't
understand. It's all so new--so strange. Eustace, please--please, don't
kiss me yet!"

He laughed again, but he did not press her for the moment. "Your father
and I have had no end of a talk," he said. "Do you know what has come of
it? Would you like to know?"

"Yes," she murmured shyly.

He was care