"I jolly well haven't had a chance of seeing you, my darling," said the young man as he devoured the radiant young face with his eyes. "I've fairly haunted the grounds of Cheyne Court but didn't dare to face your old dragon after the drubbing she gave me last week. I suppose she's all right?" he asked, a little irrelevantly.
Lady Margaret looked at him in surprise.
"Why, of course she is all right. She has been good to me, though she seems queerer than ever. But, Edgar, what do you think, she says my jewels will be a good wedding present for us! What do you say to that?"
"What!" cried the young man. "Do you mean you tackled her—you brave darling. I wonder she didn't snap your pretty head off."
"I did expect an outcry, when I said I was going to marry you," she said, shaking her fair head, "but she said I might, and should have the Cheyne Court jewels, too."
"Considering they're your own property, my darling, that's just like her cheek," retorted Sir Edgar. "But I'm hanged if I can understand it, for when I saw her last, as I told you, she abused me like a pickpocket."
Lady Margaret laughed aloud in childish glee.
"Well, we'll just take the goods the gods send," said she. "She can keep the old jewels if she likes, if only she gives her consent to our marriage."
Her voice dropped tenderly upon the words, and the wild-rose colour bloomed for a moment in her cheeks until Sir Edgar, impetuous young man that he was, gave a hasty look round at the practically empty square and snatched the kiss he had been longing for ever since he had caught sight of her.
"And now," he said, when Lady Margaret, blushing deeper than ever, had reproved him for his audacity, "what are you going to do next?"