"Oh, not at all," protested the miserable Sharnbrook. "Please don't."
"Oh, but I shall," she insisted. "I am interested in that delightful old market woman who has just driven in. Tell me when I may turn round."
"Now," said Sharnbrook, desperately bold.
"Dagmar, don't be absurd," protested her sister, with a provocative glance at her jibbing lover.
"I can't see behind me," Dagmar observed casually.
"None of your tricks, Dagmar," said Ethel, facing the wretched young man, and then turning her head as though to look at her sister, which manoeuvre had the intended effect of giving John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook a magnificent oscillatory opportunity.
But though the way was plain the will was absent. "No, no," protested the gentleman, hanging off; "I'm up to her game. You won't catch me, Miss Dagmar. She has only got to turn her head," he pointed out confidentially to Ethel.
"Oh, she won't—just yet," the lady murmured softly. "She had better not," she added, with a meaning smile.
"We had better not," suggested the harried Sharnbrook at his wits' end, desperately determined not to compromise himself before a witness.
"Oh, just as you please," returned Miss Ethel, with a disgusted toss of her head. "If you are so frightened."