"Really?" with dawning interest.

"Really," emphatically.

"Well, she's rather interesting after all," said Gwen, "for no doubt you are the eligible man of the neighbourhood."

"She wouldn't care a snap of the fingers for that."

"Not any more than I do for the woolly lamb's coronet?"

"Exactly. Now you are getting at the resemblance."

"But you haven't yet told me why she hates you and me."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not very clear," he answered, "and anyhow it would be too tedious to try and explain. It's a trifle enough anyway. Hullo!" breaking off, "isn't that your baa-lamb I hear?"

Gwen listened with her head on one side.

"Yes, that's his bleat," she said. "Mamma will lead him in by a blue ribbon, so to speak, in a minute, and I shall want desperately to recite:

"'Mummie had a woolly lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, But 'twas everywhere that Gwennie went That lamb would always go.'"

She jumped up and commenced patting her hair into place and straightening the lace of her dress, remarking that, after all said and done, there was no harm in captivating. A moment later her mother came in looking worried.

"My dear," she said, "Earl Selloyd wishes to speak to you alone. He is in the library."

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Gwen. "Has it come to this!"

"It's very wrong to speak of it in that way," said her mother reprovingly. "I'm sure I don't know where the girls of the present day get their queer manners from. Do try and realise that Earl Selloyd has come here this afternoon to pay you the greatest honour it is in the power of any man to pay to any woman."

"Baa--a--a--a," mimicked Gwen wickedly, and Lawrence bit his lip.

"At least then, remember that you are a gentlewoman," continued Mrs Carew severely, "or that Providence intended you for one."

"Now you're getting sarcastic, mummie." Gwen went up and put her arm round her mother's neck. "Don't you get sarcastic with Gwennie, mummie, because she's just all right underneath. It's only on the top die's queer. Because you thought you were going to rear a stately swan, and found you had only a wicked duckling, you needn't frown and pucker up in that fashion. Stately swans are very tedious, and wicked ducklings do at least keep you going; so you ought really to go down on your knees and thank the good Providence that spared you the monotony of perpetually sailing about with your neck at an uncomfortable angle.

Don't you think so, Lawrie? Now, I'll go and see his Earlship and be good. To him I shall put the case differently, and explain how infinitely preferable the calm of the stately swan is, beside the tiresome duckling,"--and she crossed the large drawing-room to the door.

Here, however, she turned again.

"Lawrie."

"Yes."

"Do you know, I've an odd notion that if you haven't already fallen in love with that Irish, country-b.u.mpkin girl, you very shortly will!" and without giving him time to reply she vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

LAWRENCE HEARS SOME NEWS.

"Now, you know this is very foolish," said Gwen.

When she entered the library Earl Selloyd had hastened to meet her with exaggerated courtesy, and dragged forward a big arm-chair, begging her to be seated. Gwen poised herself on the arm of it, and swung one foot.

"Very foolish, indeed!" she repeated, eyeing gravely the thin, nervous, foolish-looking young man, who, nevertheless, represented one of the oldest and most ill.u.s.trious families of England.

"I hope you don't mean that," he said. "Indeed, Miss Carew, it is only your happiness I have at heart."

"And a little your own, I hope," with a faint smile. Then she went on before he could interrupt: "You know I have the name for being very original, Lord Selloyd, and I'm going to be original now. You've evidently come here this evening to propose to me, and I'm not going to let you propose. I'm not the sort of girl who likes to count up her conquests and tell all the other girls. All I ask of things generally just now is, let me have a good time, and I don't care whether I get any proposal or not. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to want to give me your name and t.i.tle and all that, but since I can't accept them, we won't say any more about it."

"But my dear Miss Carew," he implored, "your mother led me to suppose that she--"

"That doesn't count," interrupted Gwen. "To be very candid, you know as well as I do that no mother can help fancying a coronet for her daughter, and it's just the same the world over. Now, although I'm supposed to be very up to date, I'm really positively antique about some things, and one of them is the question of matrimony. I'm so old-fashioned that I mean to marry for love, even if I marry a plain Mr n.o.body. There! now you must see that it is a mistake to continue this interview."

His lordship fidgeted nervously. "But couldn't you?" he began--"couldn't you--don't you think--?"

"I'm afraid not," Gwen said kindly, helping him out. "Isn't there anything I could do?" pleadingly. "Perhaps if you would tell me what you want in a man--?"

Gwen felt inclined to say it was a _man_, just that, pure and simple: that she wanted, but she was naturally a kind hearted girl and had no desire to hurt his feelings.

"It's no use," she said frankly. "Let's part friends, and you'll soon find someone you can care for heaps more than me, who won't worry the life out of you a bit like I should have done."

His lordship shook his head sorrowfully, and looked very woebegone.

"No," he said, "I shall never love another, and I shall never be happy again. I might as well go and shoot myself at once."

Gwen felt desperately inclined to laugh, but managed to keep her face sufficiently to say:

"Oh no, I wouldn't do that. When you've got a fine estate, and a t.i.tle, and all that sort of thing, it's a pity to clear out and let someone else s.n.a.t.c.h it up."

His lordship seemed rather struck with the idea, for he said no more about shooting as he dragged himself to the door. He did, however, contrive to look the picture of wretchedness, though somehow not in a manner that appealed to Gwen's heart, and when the door finally closed behind him she hid her face in her hands a moment as if she would hide her smile even from herself. She had to pause to straighten her face again before she reappeared in the drawing-room, though Lawrence read everything directly in her eyes.

"Well," said her mother, "have you sent him away?"

"I didn't send him, mummie--he went," she answered coaxingly.

"He wouldn't have gone if you had answered him sensibly."

"Answered him about what?"

"Why, his proposal, of course."

"But he didn't propose."

"Didn't propose!" dropping her work on her knee, and lifting her eyes in astonishment.

"No, mummie. I advised him not to."

Lawrence's rare smile spread over his face.

"My dear, what do you mean?" said Mrs Carew with a helpless look.