"He'd be a very good mule," Sarella observed coolly, considerably scandalizing Mariquita.
"You'd have found him a pretty unpleasant one, if Gore and I had left you to manage him yourself." Sarella added, entirely unmoved by her cousin's shocked look. "We managed him. He won't beat you now. But you'd better keep out of his way as much as you can for a bit. If I were you, I'd have a bad headache and stop in bed."
"But I haven't a headache. I never do have headaches."
Sarella made a queer face, and sighed, then laughed.
"Anyway, you're not to be made to marry Mr. Gore," she said.
Mariquita looked enormously relieved, and began to express her grateful sense of Sarella's good offices.
"For that matter," Sarella cut in, "neither will Mr. Gore be made to marry you—so if you change your mind it will be no good. He thinks it would be wicked to marry you."
Mariquita perfectly understood that Sarella was trying to make her sorry, and only gave a cheerful little laugh.
"Then," she said, "I shall certainly not ask him. It would be quite useless to ask him to do anything wicked."
"The fact is," Sarella told her, "that you and he ought to be put in a glass case—two glass cases, you'd both of you be quite shocked at the idea of being in one—and labelled. It's a good thing you're unique. If other lovers were like you two, there'd be no marriages."