"And you know I am tremendously in love with you, Myra, and want to make you all my own," said Tony, capturing her hands. "I know I can make you love me, and we will be enormously happy after we are married. Do be a darling and let me fix a date for our wedding."
"Be a dear, Tony, and don't press me," pleaded Myra. "We are happy enough as we are, and since we became engaged and Aunt Clarissa ceased to badger me, I've been having a gorgeous time. Let's postpone fixing a date for our marriage until next Spring, by which time I may be sure of my own heart. Perhaps it's an old-fashioned idea, but I'd like to be in love with the man I marry."
"I say, Myra!" exclaimed Tony, as if struck by a sudden idea, after a few moments of silence. "I say! A promise is a promise, you know. You won't throw me over and make me look and feel an ass, will you, if you should happen to meet someone you think you like better than me? You've promised to be my wife, you know."
"Yes, I know, Tony, but I also know you are too much of a sportsman to hold me to my promise if I should happen to fall in love with another man," Myra responded. "That isn't in the least likely to happen, Tony dear, and I am truly trying to love you in the way a girl should love the man she has promised to marry, as I have already told you. Let me have my freedom and my fling for a few months longer."
"Well, I suppose it isn't any use my trying to bully you into marrying me at once," said Tony, with a shrug, a sigh, and a wry smile. "But you know I'm tremendously in love with you, darling, and I can't help feeling jealous of the fellows who still go on dancing attendance on you although you are engaged to me. I'm haunted by the fear of someone stealing you from me."
"Tony, darlint, you've no need to be jealous," Myra smilingly assured him, and patted his cheek. "There isn't anyone else. Dozens of men profess to be in love with me, but there isn't a single man—or a married man either—that I'm the slightest little bit in love with. So don't worry! I promise you that if ever I do meet a man whom I'd rather marry than you, I'll tell you."
And with that Tony had, perforce, to be content.
CHAPTER II
A few hours later Myra was one of a fashionable and interested crowd watching the polo at Hurlingham. An exciting match was in progress, and Myra cried out enthusiastically as one of the players, after a thrilling mêlée, made a splendid shot, followed up, beat the defence, and scored a magnificent goal.
"Oh, well played, sir, well played!" Myra exclaimed enthusiastically, clapping her hands. "Who is he, Jimmy?" she added, turning to her escort, who was also applauding. "Do you know him?"