"I will recall my fiancé to his duty," she declared, "and you can go and talk nonsense to Sylvia."
"Thank you," he answered, "I am afraid that I am not in the humour to talk nonsense with anybody."
She turned her head slightly and looked at him.
"Sylvia is such an admirer of yours," she said, "and she has such a delightful way of being light-hearted herself and affecting others in the same fashion. If I were a man—"
"Yes?"
"I should marry Sylvia."
"And if I," he declared, with a sudden flash in his eyes, "possessed that ridiculous family tree of Lord Charles Grantham's—"
"Well?"
"I should marry you."
She looked at him through half-closed eyes. There was a little smile on her lips which at first he thought insolent, but concerning which afterwards he permitted himself to speculate. He stopped short.