o--h'm!--to try to get somebody to try to let him try to tell her
that he wanted to--marry her?"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Neville, bewildered, "what do you mean?"

Ogilvy pirouetted, picked up a mahl-stick, and began a lively fencing
bout with an imaginary adversary.

"I'm going to get married," he said amiably.

"What!"

"Sure."

"To whom?"

"To Helene d'Enver. Only she doesn't know it yet."

"What an infernal idiot you are, Sam!"

"Ya-as, so they say. Some say I'm an ass, others a bally idiot, others
merely refer to me as imbecile. And so it goes, Kelly,--so it goes."

He flourished his mahl-stick, neatly punctured the air, and cried "Hah!"
very fiercely.

Then he said:

"I've concluded to let Helene know about it this afternoon."

"About what?--you monkey?"

"About our marriage. _Won't_ it surprise her though! Oh, no! But I
think I'll let her into the secret before some suspicious gink gets wind
of it and tells her himself."

Neville looked at the boy, perplexed, undecided, until he caught his
eye. And over Sam's countenance stole a vivid and beauteous blush.

"Sam! I--upon my word I believe you mean it!"

"Sure I do!"

Neville grasped his hand:

"My dear fellow!" he said cordially, "I was slow, not unsympathetic. I'm
frightfully glad--I'm perfectly delighted. She's a charming and sincere
woman. Go in and win and God bless you both!"

Ogilvy wrung his hand, then, to relieve his feelings, ran all over the
floor like a spider and was pretending to spin a huge web in a corner
when Harry Annan and Rita Tevis came in and discovered him.

"Hah!" he exclaimed, "flies! Two nice, silly, appetising flies. Pretend
to fall into my web, Rita, and begin to buzz like mad!"

Rita's dainty nose went up into the air, but Annan succumbed to the
alluring suggestion, and presently he was buzzing frantically in a
corner while Sam spun an imaginary web all over him.

Rita and Neville looked on for a while.

"Sam never will grow up," she said disdainfully.

"He's fortunate," observed Neville.

"_You_ don't think so."

"I wish I knew what I did think, Rita. How is John?"

"I came to tell you. He has gone to Dartford."

"To see Dr. Ogilvy? Good! I'm glad, Rita. Billy Ogilvy usually makes
people do what he tells them to do."

[Illustration: "Ogilvy ... began a lively fencing bout with an imaginary
adversary."]

The girl stood silent, eyes lowered. After a while she looked up at him;
and in her unfalt