"Blake!" he muttered, and he looked angrily at the big inert form half prostrate on the table. "He's intoxicated, I tell you—or if he's not, he ought to be. The insolence of him, hanging around Genevieve! I hope he is drunk! That would settle it all. We'd be rid of him then."
"'We'?" queried Dolores.
He caught her curious glance, and hastened to disclaim: "No, not we—Genevieve—I meant Genevieve, of course!"
Dolores affected a coquettish air. "Oh, Mr. Brice-Ashton! I do believe you want to get him out of the way."
"I? No, no!" he protested, with an uneasy, furtive glance at Blake.
"Don't try to fool me," she insisted. "I know your scheme. But it's of no use. If she doesn't take the hero, she'll accept the earl. Ah, me! To think you're still scheming to get Vievie, when all the evening you've pretended it was I!"
In the reaction from his fright, he sprang up and advanced on her ardently. "It is you, Dodie! you know it is. Own up, now—we're just suited to each other. It's a case of soul-mates!"
"Oh, is it, really?" she gushed. He sought to kiss her, but she eluded him coquettishly. "Wait, please. We must first settle the question. If it's a case of soul-mates, who's to be the captain?"
"See here, Dodie," he admonished; "we've fooled long enough. I'm in earnest. You don't seem to realize this is a serious proposal."
"Really?" she mocked. "A formal declaration of your most honorable intentions to make me Mrs. L. Brice-Ashton?"