"It isn't philandering," he cried indignantly. "I love you as I never loved before in my life. I'd marry you to-day if you'd say so."
"But I'm not going to say so to-day or to-morrow or any other day. I don't love you in the least. But it amuses me to play at love, and it salves my conscience when I think it's for a good cause. There! That's the whole story," and she threw him a look that conveyed finality.
He debated mentally for the best part of half a minute before speaking. Certainly Mrs. Darling was not flattering. He realized that hers was the stronger character.
"Have you always been so particular?" he asked, unable quite to dissemble his vexation.
"That's just it," she answered. "I haven't been. But I'm resolved to turn over a new leaf. I've sent so many to the devil that my heart is set on sending you to--to Heaven instead."
He opened his arms, hungrily and invitingly, and said:
"I promise. I'll take you on your own terms, since that is the only way."
"As a gentleman you can't break your word, you know," she reminded him. "Hadn't you better wait until after luncheon to think it over?"
"Oh, yes, it will," she interrupted. "It's served now. We mustn't set every one talking and gossiping by being late and coming in together." She was already on her feet, and his arms dropped disconsolately. "I'll go at once, and you can think a while and then follow."
"Not until you have thought it over. It wouldn't be fair to any one of us three." And she disappeared through the maze of orange trees.
When Carleigh reached the luncheon table it was to find Nina in animated conversation with a tall, bald, red-mustached man who sat on her left. Carleigh found his place opposite, but she barely noticed him, so thoroughly did she appear interested.
Her companion, who proved to be Sir Guy Waldron, the archæologist, just back from an excavating expedition to Sardis, in Asia Minor, was telling her about the buried riches of Croesus, and his hope of digging them up.
The spectacle robbed Sir Caryll of his last vestige of appetite, and Lady Mary Wycherley, who couldn't take her eyes off him--she did so love romance--whispered to Mrs. Blythe, the poetess, her nearest neighbor, that it was quite clear the poor boy was eating his heart out in melancholy over the inhuman treatment of "that shocking American girl."