Sir Peter shrugged his handsome shoulders, dusted his nose with a whisk of his lace handkerchief, and looked impatiently for a sign of his wife and the party of ladies attending her.
"Carus," he said under his breath, "you should enter the lists, you rogue."
"What lists?" I answered carelessly.
"Lord! he asks me what lists!" mimicked Sir Peter. "Why don't you court her? The match is suitable and desirable. You ninny, do you suppose it was by accident that Elsin Grey became our guest? Why, lad, we're set on it—and, damme! but I'm as crafty a matchmaker as my wife, planning the pretty game together in the secret of our chambers after you and Elsin are long abed, and—Lord! I came close to saying 'snoring'—for which you should have called me out, sir, if you are champion of Elsin Grey."
"But, Sir Peter," I said smiling, "I do not love the lady."
"A boorish speech!" he snapped. "Take shame, Carus, you Tryon County bumpkin!"
"I mean," said I, reddening, "and should have said, that the lady does not love me."
"That's better." He laughed, and added, "Pay your court, sir. You are fashioned for it."
"But I do not care to," I said.
"O Lord!" muttered Sir Peter, looking at the great beams above us, "my match-making is come to naught, after all, and my wife will be furious with you—furious, I say. And here she comes, too," he said, brightening, as he ever did, at sight of his lovely wife, who had remained his sweetheart, too; and this I am free to say, that, spite of the looseness of the times and of society, never, as long as I knew him, did Sir Peter forget in thought or deed those vows he took when wedded. Sportsman he was, and rake and gambler, as were we all; and I have seen him often overflushed with wine, but never heard from his lips a blasphemy or foul jest, never a word unworthy of clean lips and the clean heart he carried with him to his grave.