"What sublime assurance!" exclaimed Bertie St. Orme, lying on his back in the luxurious punt which his sister was leisurely impelling up stream, and laughing up at her flushed face. "This viscount of yours seems to have plenty of decision of character, whatever else he may be lacking in."
Bertie St. Orme was a cripple, and spent every summer regularly upon the river with his old manservant, nicknamed "the Badger."
"Oh, he is quite impossible!" Hilary declared. "Let's talk of something else!"
"But he means to keep you to your word, eh?" her brother persisted. "How will you get out of it?"
Hilary's face flushed more deeply, and she bit her lip.
"There won't be any getting out of it. Don't be silly! I am free."
"The end of the season!" teased Bertie. "That allows you—let's see—four, five, six more weeks of freedom."
"Be quiet, if you don't want a drenching!" warned Hilary. "Besides," she added, with inconsequent optimism, "anything may happen before then. Why, I may even be married to a man I really like."
"Great Scotland, so you may!" chuckled her brother. "There's the wild man that Dick has brought down here to tame before launching at society. He's a great beast like a brown bear. He wouldn't be my taste, but that's a detail."
"I hate fashionable men!" declared Hilary, with scarlet face. "I'd rather marry a red Indian than one of these inane men about town."