"Shouldn't wonder," said Peckover with a grin. "Well, if we've got to make him jealous, don't let's lose any time in preliminaries."
"Mr. Gage, you are too absurd," Ulrica remarked as she unwound her feather victorine.
"Don't see much absurdity in that suggestion, anyhow," he returned. "What's the good of a chance if you don't take it?"
"We need not exactly act in earnest," she suggested.
"I've always thought that make-believe was poor sport," he rejoined engagingly. "We were getting on nicely yesterday; if only——"
"Ah, yes," she continued archly; "there's always an if only——"
"If only," he continued, "Quorn wasn't on our track, we need not be in such a hurry to say what's uppermost in our minds. As it is——"
His arm seemed, to her alert eyes, to have a caressing twitch about it. "Shall we go out into the garden?" she proposed, by a plausible manoeuvre putting the table between them.
"Too many men about, setting the place straight," he objected knowingly. "Safer here, and snugger too, Ulrica!"
"Oh, Mr. Gage!" she expostulated, as by a swift dart he got round to her side of the table.