dy you detest--eh, George?" said Lilith
sweetly.

"Confound it! That everlasting trying to be sharp is one of the most
deadly things a man has to put up with. It's catching--eh, Lilith?" was
the sneering retort.

"But who is it?" said Mrs. Falkner, who was short-sighted, or affected
to be.

"Oh, the great god, Stanninghame, of course, and his pup, Holmes."

Now the ill-conditioned George had stirred up a hornet's nest, for his
sister took up the parable.

"Well, there are lessons to be learned even from 'pups,'" said Mabel
scathingly. "They are not _always_ growling, at any rate."

"Oh, you're on the would-be smart lay, too? Didn't I say it was
catching?" he jeered.

"Yes, and you say a great many things that are supremely foolish,"
retorted Mabel, turning up her tip-tilted nose a little more, in fine
scorn.

"Well, I'm off to the camp," said George, with a sort of snarl, reaching
for a hat. "Clearly, I'm not wanted here."

"You're not, if you're going to do nothing but make yourself fiendishly
disagreeable," rejoined his sister, pertly pitiless. In reality she was
very fond of him, and he of her, but he had trampled on a tender place;
for she liked Holmes.

George banged on his hat, strode angrily to the door, and--got no
farther. He did not see why he should leave the field clear to all
comers, even if he were out of the running himself; a line of
irresoluteness which affords an excellent exemplification of the remarks
wherewith we have opened this chapter.

By all but George, who was excusably undemonstrative, the two new
arrivals were greeted with customary cordiality.

"Why, Mr. Stanninghame, it seems quite a long time since we saw you
last," said Mrs. Falkner, as they were all seated out on the _stoep_.
"What have you been doing with yourself?"

"The usual thing--studying the share market, and--talking about it."

"And is the outlook still as bad as it was?"

"Worse. However, we must hope it'll go better."

"I hear that you and that queer man, Mr. Hazon, have become such
friends, Mr. Stanninghame."

This was the sort of remark with which Laurence had scant patience, the
more so that it met him at every turn. What concern was it of the Rand
collectively who he chose to be friendly with, that every third person
he met should rap out such kind of comment?

"Oh, we get along all right, Mrs. Falkner," he answered. "But then I
have a special faculty for hitting it off with unpopular
persons--pos