"An opportunity for quarreling."

"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use,
and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we
might. But I dare say it's my fault."

"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am
and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you
don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are
pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."

"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."

"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."

"And whatever my feelings may be--and you can hardly wonder if, after
your conduct, they are not what they were--I shall consider myself
bound."

"I have never proposed anything else."

"Your conduct with Claudia--"

"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that--but
there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us
remember our manners, if nothing else."

"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.

"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this
conversation may as well end, may it not?"

Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.

Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the
accession of Bob Territon.

"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.

"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too--we have been here a
terrible time."

"Why?"

"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week.
The match is fixed for next Wednesday."

"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."

"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"

"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day.
I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too
much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist,
the deluge!"

"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."

"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the
birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at
long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."

"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a
rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."

"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene
looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.

"Where