"Mr. Gage, how absurd you are."

"Yes," he agreed, "the suggestion is rather far-fetched. We may as well keep within kissing distance, mayn't we?"

"Oh, but it is not proper," Ethel protested.

"Kissing?" he asked in surprise, "I think it is proper; if you are going in for a proper time. Why not?"

"It is," she answered demurely, "between some people."

"People who know how to make the time pa.s.s?" he suggested.

"People who are--engaged," she said, with as much indifference to the immediate and personal application as she could a.s.sume.

"Well," he rejoined flippantly, "you are engaged, and I may be."

"Mr. Gage!" She turned on him indignantly. "I am not engaged."

"Not to Sharnbrook?"

"Mr. Gage, how absurd you are."

"I hope so. Are you engaged?" he asked significantly.

"Whether I am engaged or free," she answered, "it is all the same to you."

"No," he returned, "if you were a little more free it would be quite different."

"Would it?" she asked, with a provocative glance at his face.

"Wouldn't it? Like this." He closed his arm round her and tried to draw her to him.

"Oh, Mr. Gage, you don't mean it," she protested, holding back.

"Come!" he said. "One kiss."

"Oh, no. It wouldn't be right," she still objected. Then she sighed.

"Poor Jack!"

"Ah, poor fellow," Peckover said, with a hardly suppressed grin. "Poor old Sharnbrook."

"He is very fond of me," she said, regretfully. "But of course if I can't care for him as much as I ought to--I don't know what the poor fellow will do."

"Give me something handsome, I hope," was Peckover's thought. "Ethel,"

he whispered, and this time did get something like a kiss.

"Percy, it is wrong of you," she murmured.

"I know it is," he admitted, drawing in a breath as of pain. "Poor old Sharnbrook; and he thinks I'm his friend. He'll never give you up," he added with conviction.

For an instant Miss Ethel's look suggested that that matter might be safely left in her hands to bring to a satisfactory conclusion. But it swiftly pa.s.sed away, and she said, "Jack Sharnbrook is a good fellow.

He will not stand in the way of my happiness."

"That he won't, I'll go bail," said Peckover to himself. "Ethel!" he murmured caressingly.

"Oh, Mr. Gage," she returned, in half-yielding protest. "Percy, darling," he suggested, drawing her to him for another kiss.

"You must wait," she objected, "till we are engaged."

"We Gages never wait," he a.s.sured her softly. "It's a tradition in the family. No. We don't hang about for the mistletoe to grow."

Nevertheless the present representative of that impatient race had to postpone his endearments, for the door opened softly and Miss Dagmar's scandalized voice cried, "Oh, Ethel!" making the fond pair start aside with electric unanimity.

"Bother it," Peckover muttered, putting on the air of self-conscious indifference usual in such contretemps.

"All right, Miss Dagmar," said Ethel through her teeth.

"Hope we haven't disturbed you," exclaimed Sharnbrook who had followed Dagmar into the room.

Peckover jumped up and went to him. "Got a cigarette?" he asked in a loud voice, adding in a whisper, "Don't look so pleased, old man; or you'll spoil everything."

Sharnbrook took the hint at once. "Don't speak to me, Mr. Gage," he cried resentfully.

"You've not lost any time," Dagmar sarcastically remarked to her sister.

"No, dear," Ethel replied with feline sweetness.

"He belongs to that appalling woman from Australia," said Dagmar confidently. "She'll hold him. Don't you wish you may get him."

"I've got him," Ethel declared.

"She's ready to break it off," whispered Peckover to Sharnbrook.

"Don't be too eager. Pretend to be broken-hearted."

The other nodded. "Mr. Gage," he said, with a fine show of dignified feeling, "I find I am mistaken in you."

"That you are," Peckover muttered aside through the corner of his mouth.

"How do you do the broken-hearted?" Sharnbrook enquired in a whisper, seeing the ladies were occupied in reciprocating sarcasms.

"Don't make too much noise," Peckover instructed him, in the same tone.

"Think you are feeling sick; that it's your wedding-day with Ethel.

Fancy you've missed a pheasant and shot your best dog."

"But I should make a noise," the pupil objected.

"Well, mug a bit," said Peckover, with a model grimace suggestive of the wrong horse winning.

"Oh, don't speak to me!" Sharnbrook shouted, as the ladies seemed to tire of their mutual repartees.