“I may be angry,” the Marquis replied, “but I promise I will not beat you. In fact, if you do fail, it will be my failure too, which I shall find extremely humiliating.
“That is something – which must – not happen,” Ula said passionately. “I could not imagine you – humiliated or anything but an autocrat sitting on top of the world – eclipsing everybody else – below you.”
“Thank you, Ula, and just remember that you have to maintain me in that position and not let me, like Humpty Dumpty, have a great fall!”
Ula gave a spontaneous little laugh and, picking up the reins, the Marquis drove on.
It was only as they came in sight of an attractive stone house with a porticoed front door and long windows looking out over a garden brilliant with flowers that Ula was nervous.
The Marquis did not
