Lord Saltars was not unlike a groom in some ways, but his good nature and candour amused Eva. "I am not a person to judge," she said, smiling.
"By Jove, you might have been, though," said he, fixing his small grey eyes on her; "supposing you became Lady Saltars?"
"There's not the slightest chance of that," said Eva coldly.
"There isn't now: but there might have been. And after all, why not now, if things are what your father said they were?"
Miss Strode drew herself up. She thought he was going too far. "I really don't know what you mean. I am engaged to be married."
"I know; to a fellow called Hill. Your father told me."
"Lord Saltars, did you meet my father after he came home?"
"Of course I did. He called to see me when he came to London, and corresponded with me long before that. I say, do you remember when I came to see you at Wargrove?"
"By Jove, no more we did! That was a pity, because I came to see what kind of a wife you'd make."
"You're very kind," said Eva indignantly, "but I'm not on the market to be examined like a horse."
"Haw--haw," laughed the other, slapping his knee, "that's the kind of thing the dowager would say. Don't get waxy, Eva--Miss Strode then, though I wish you'd call me Herbert and I'd call you Eva."
"Saltars without the confounded lord," urged the man pertinaciously.
"No; go on. What were you saying? Yes, that you came to see what sort of a wife I'd make. Who told you to?"
"It's true, though. Your father wanted you to marry me. He kept writing to me from South Africa to keep me up to the scratch, and said he was gathering a fortune for us both. When he came home he called on me and told me you had some folly in your head about this chap Hill, and----"
Eva rose indignantly, "Lord Saltars," she said calmly and distinctly, "I don't allow any one to talk to me in this way. My engagement to Mr. Allen Hill is not a folly. And I don't see why my father should have talked to you about it."
"Because he wanted me to marry you," said Saltars, rising and following her to the fireplace.
Eva placed one slippered foot on the fender, and an elbow on the mantelpiece. She looked angry, but extremely pretty and well-bred. Saltars adopted the same attitude opposite her and looked more like a groom than ever. But the expression of his face was so good-natured that Eva could not feel as angry as she ought to have done.