"There isn't now: but there might have been. And after all, why not now, if things are what your father said they were?"
Miss Strode drew herself up. She thought he was going too far. "I really don't know what you mean. I am engaged to be married."
"I know; to a fellow called Hill. Your father told me."
"Lord Saltars, did you meet my father after he came home?"
"Of course I did. He called to see me when he came to London, and corresponded with me long before that. I say, do you remember when I came to see you at Wargrove?"
"Yes. We did not get on well together."
"By Jove, no more we did! That was a pity, because I came to see what kind of a wife you'd make."
"You're very kind," said Eva indignantly, "but I'm not on the market to be examined like a horse."
"Haw--haw," laughed the other, slapping his knee, "that's the kind of thing the dowager would say. Don't get waxy, Eva--Miss Strode then, though I wish you'd call me Herbert and I'd call you Eva."
"I shall call you Lord Saltars."