Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/164

 and it sounded nice and sort of dignified and—and manly, and I named him Gordon!"

"Heroes are always called Gordon," he responded soberly. "Just as heroines are always Peggy. And don't you think it's about time that I knew the rest of your name?"

"I haven't told you yet about our quarrel," she countered. "I had it all planned that Lady Leona and Gordon were to run across each other by accident in the park near the scene of the crime. I thought having it near the scene of the crime was rather clever. Do you?"

"Awfully."

"Thanks. And she was to recognize him with a cry and fall fainting on the velvety turf. I don't think I'd got much beyond that with the details, but in the end she was to marry him, throwing over the Earl of Devereux, who was afterwards killed leading a heroic charge in South Africa. But Leona insisted that she should marry the Earl, and didn't like Gordon a bit. I'm afraid I did make him a little priggish, but I tried to make Leona understand that it wasn't really she who was marrying him, but the character in the novel. But she had got it into her head by