"He's not a bad fellow, you know, after all--honest and good--not brilliant, of course."
"I don't mean he's a fool; I believe he's an efficient officer----"
"Officer? Why, you're talking of Gerard!"
"How can you imagine I was thinking of Gerard? I meant Mr. Bannister."
"Bannister? Why, you told me only the other day----"
The Squire raised himself and looked severely at his daughter.
"A precious fuss you've made about nothing."
"I can't help it, papa. I don't want to, but he insists."
"He seems to know how to manage you, which is more than I do. There, go and tell your mother. And, Jan!"
"If ever you say you won't have him again----"
"By Jove, you shan't!" said the Squire with emphasis, and he added, as his daughter fled after a hasty kiss, "Perhaps that'll keep her quiet."
Dale found nobody but Philip Hume to congratulate him, and Philip was, as usual now, busy over his little plan.
"Oh, she's come round, has she?" he asked, with no sign of surprise.
Dale said she had, and Philip meditatively took up his little plan.
"She never knew you had asked Miss Delane before?"
"No. Nobody knew but her people and you. I think she had an idea I liked Jan."
Philip whistled gently, and twisted the little plan in his fingers. Dale, in his good humor, said:
"Why the deuce, Phil, do you go on fidgeting with that thing? You're like an old hen over an egg."
"Yes; I don't know that it is any good. I think I'll destroy it."
And he tore it slowly in two, and threw it in the fire.
"The vindictive theory of punishment," he remarked, with apparent irrelevance, "does not commend itself to me. If no evil consequences exist to be averted, why should we punish?" and he pushed the plan farther into the blaze with the poker.
"If you want to argue that sort of thing, old fellow, you must ring for Wilson. I'm going to have a try at some verses."
"Going to write your own epitaph, like Swift?"
Dale shook his head and smiled, with the impenetrable, hopeless happiness of successful love.
A few days after Dale's love affairs had begun to flow in a more peaceful channel the Mayor of Market Denborough had an interview with Mr. Philip Hume, and Philip emerged from the conversation with a smile of mingled amusement and perplexity on his face. The Mayor had been to the Grange; the Squire fully approved of the scheme; a hundred pounds was subscribed already, and another twenty or thirty expected. Philip was requested to act as an intermediary, and find out from Miss Fane what form she would prefer that the testimonial which Denborough intended to offer to her, in recognition of her signal gallantry, should take.