Lancaster was not pleased.  “It seems to me,” he said, “that you trifle with the most important affairs of life.”

“Trifle!” exclaimed Locker.  “Would you call it trifling if I fail, and then to save her from a worse fate, were to back you up with all my heart and soul?”

Dick could not help smiling.  “By a worse fate,” he said, “I suppose you mean—­”

“The Austrian,” interrupted Locker.  “Mrs. Easterfield has told me something about him.  He may have a title some day, and he is about as dangerous as they make them.  Instead of accusing me of trifling, you ought to go down on your knees and thank me for still standing between him and her.”

“That is a duty I would like to perform myself,” said Dick.

“Perhaps you may have a chance,” sighed Locker, “but I most earnestly hope not.  Look over there at that he-nurse.  Those children have made him take them walking, and he is just coming back to the house.”

CHAPTER XXII

The Conflicting Serenades.

Mrs. Easterfield worked steadily at her letter, feeling confident all the time that her secretary was attending conscientiously to the task which had been assigned to her, and which could not fail to be a most congenial one.  One of the greatest joys of Miss Raleigh’s life was to interfere in other people’s business; and to do it under approval and with the feeling that it was her duty was a rare joy.

The letter was to her husband, and Mrs. Easterfield was writing it because she was greatly troubled, and even frightened.  In the indulgence of a good-humored and romantic curiosity to know whether or not a grown-up young woman would return to a sentimental attachment of her girlhood, she had brought her husband’s secretary to the house with consequences which were appalling.  If this navy girl she had on hand had been a mere flirt, Mrs. Easterfield, an experienced woman of society, might not have been very much troubled, but Olive seemed to her to be much more than a flirt; she would trifle until she made up her mind, but when she should come to a decision Mrs. Easterfield believed she would act fairly and squarely.  She wanted to marry; and, in her heart, Mrs. Easterfield commended her; without a mother; now more than ever without a father; her only near relative about to marry a woman who was certainly a most undesirable connection; Olive was surely right in wishing to settle in life.  And, if piqued and affronted by her father’s intended marriage, she wished immediately to declare her independence, the girl could not be blamed.  And, from what she had said of Mr. Hemphill, Mrs. Easterfield could not in her own mind dissent.  He was a good young man; he had an excellent position; he fervently loved Olive; she had loved him, and might do it again.  What was there to which she could object?  Only this:  it angered and frightened her to think of Olive Asher throwing herself away upon Rupert Hemphill.  So she wrote a very strong