"So she will. I know what I'm about, bless your heart! Chris always asks my advice and generally takes it. She will marry you all right before the end of the season. You leave it to me."
He turned from the window with the words, still smiling. "Give me five minutes alone with her," he said.
And Mordaunt, though more than half against his will, yielded the point, and let him go.
They lunched in the old oak-beamed dining-room--a meal presided over by Max, who played the host with a half-mocking air, while Chris, still eager upon the renovations, poured out plans, practicable and otherwise, for her _fiancé's_ consideration.
"What a pity we have to get back!" she said regretfully when the time for departure drew near. "I want to begin right away, Trevor. Why can't we spend the night here? Wire to Aunt Philippa, Max. Say we are busy."
"Quite impossible," said Mordaunt, with a smile at her ardent face. "There isn't a bed for you to sleep on."
"I could sleep on the sofa with Cinders," she said. "We can sleep anywhere."
"They've slept on a heap of stones before now," remarked Max.
"I'm sure we haven't!" She whisked round upon him with a suddenness that was almost a challenge. "We haven't, Max!" she repeated.
He stuck a cigarette into his mouth. "All right, my dear girl. My mistake, no doubt. I thought you had."
"Don't be absurd!" ordered Chris, colouring vividly "We never did anything so--so disreputable." She twined her arm impulsively in Mordaunt's. "Don't believe him, Trevor!"
"I don't," he said, with his quiet eyes upon her upturned face.
Max laughed aloud. "Why don't you tell him the joke, Chris?"
"Because there isn't any joke, and you're very horrid," she returned with spirit. "Trevor, let's go!"
"Very well, then." Chris turned round with relief in her face and hastily tied her veil. "Please find Cinders, Max," she said. "And bring Trevor's coat. It's in the billiard-room. I suppose we really must go back this time, but you will bring me again, won't you, Trevor?"
"Ah, yes! Only I'm so full of engagements just now. It's such a nuisance. One can never get away."
"Oh no, not really. But I want to be here, too. I love this place. You won't do anything in it without me, will you?"
"Not without your approval, certainly," he promised.