Yes! What do you want to know about him?"

"Everything, I think; everything you can tell me!"

"You know him personally, then? You've met him somewhere?"

"Yes," Claire answered to the last question, "and I'm anxious--I'm
interested to know more. Do you know his people, or anything about
him?"

"I don't know them personally. I know Carew very slightly. Good
family, I believe. Fine old place in Surrey."

The Elizabethan manor house was true, then! Claire felt relieved, but
not yet satisfied. Her suspicion was so deep-rooted that it was not
easily dispelled. She sat silent for a moment, considering her next
question.

"Is he the eldest son?"

"I believe he is. I've always understood so."

The eldest son of a good family possessing a fine old place! Claire
summoned before her the picture of the coarse florid-faced man who had
tried to flirt with her in the presence of the woman to whom he was
engaged; a man who stooped to borrow money from a girl who worked for
her own living. _What_ excuse could there be for such a man? She drew
her brows together in puzzled fashion, and said slowly--

"Then surely, if he is the heir, he ought to be rich!"

"It doesn't necessarily follow. I should say Carew was not at all
flush. Landed property is an expensive luxury in these days. I've
heard, too, that the father is a bit of a miser. He may not be generous
in the matter of allowance!"

Claire sat staring ahead, buried in thought, and Captain Fanshawe stared
at her in his turn, and wondered once more why this particular girl was
different from every other girl, and why in her presence he felt a
fullness of happiness and content. She was very pretty; but pretty
girls were no novelty in his life; he knew them by the score. It was
not her beauty which attracted him, but a mysterious affinity which made
her seem nearer to him than he had hitherto believed it possible for any
human creature to be. He had recognised this mysterious quality at
their first meeting; he had felt it more strongly at Mrs Willoughby's
"At Home"; six months' absence had not diminished his interest. Just
now, when he had caught sight of her flushed upturned face, his heart
had leapt with a violence which startled him out of his ordinary calm.
Something had happened to him. When he had time he must think the thing
out and discover its meaning. But how did she come to be so uncommonly
interested in Carew? He met Claire's eyes, and she