"Can I think of marrying," asked Rada, indignantly, "or give any promise even, when all my thoughts are fixed on Castor and the Derby? You've just got to wait, Jack."
"All right," he grumbled, "though I don't think you're treating me fair. But this little service I'm doin' you will make a bit of a bond between us, Rada. I take it for as good as an engagement; you understand that, don't you?"
"Yes, yes," said the girl petulantly, and with her usual thoughtlessness. "But don't worry me now, Jack. I'm all impatience to get this business settled. Let's go back to the stables."
The man did not move. He was digging a hole in the soft earth with his heel. "No hurry," he said. "I brought you out here to talk this matter over. I know I'm all right up to date. Your father's quite ready that I should marry you; he knows I've got the brass. It's only you I'm not sure about since this fellow Clithero came along. You may have seen a lot of him in London, for all I can tell. What were you doin' round at the Grange the other night?"
"So it was you, was it?" exclaimed Rada. "I thought so. You frightened me. Why were you hanging about the house? Was it because you thought I should be alone?" She spoke out fearlessly, and from the man's manner she knew she had divined the truth.
"I was jealous," he muttered. It was a palpable lie, since he could not have known of Mostyn's arrival.
Rada let it pass. She was too eagerly bent upon attaining her own desire to weigh consequences.
"It's getting late," she said impatiently. "We must be going, Jack." She tugged at his sleeve, seeking vainly to induce him to rise.
"Tell me first," he said, "that this fellow Clithero is nothing to you. I'm not afraid of anything else. Whether Castor wins the Derby or not you'll be engaged to me this time next year. But let me hear you say what I want."
"Mr. Clithero is nothing to me, nothing at all," exclaimed Rada, biting her lip. "I only met him once before that evening at the Grange, and then I was rude to him. I was rude to him again that night. I expect he hates me, and will hate me all the more because of Castor." She spoke vehemently, just as the words came to her lips.