n. I wondered if you knew what it was."

"I shouldn't have thought it essential that there should have been any
other reason," Scott said deliberately. "If there is--I am not in her
confidence."

He was still on his feet as if he wished it to be clearly understood that
he did not intend their conversation to develop into anything of the
nature of friendly intercourse.

Bathurst continued to smoke, but a faint air of insolence was apparent in
his attitude. He was not accustomed to being treated with contempt, and
the desire awoke within him to find some means of disconcerting this
undersized whippersnapper who had almost succeeded in making him feel
cheap.

"You haven't been making love to her on your own account by any chance, I
suppose?" he enquired lazily.

Scott's eyes flashed upon him a swift and hawk-like regard, and the
hauteur that so often characterized his brother suddenly descended upon
him and clothed him as a mantle.

"I have not," he said.

"Quite sure?" persisted Bathurst, still amiably smiling. "It's my belief
she's smitten with you, you know. I've thought so all along. Funny idea,
isn't it? Never occurred to you of course?"

Scott made no reply, but his silence was more scathing than speech. It
served to arouse all the rancour of which Bathurst's indolent nature was
capable.

"No accounting for women's preference, is there?" he said. "You ought to
feel vastly flattered, my good sir. It isn't many women would put you
before that handsome brother of yours. How did you work it, eh? Come,
you're caught! So you may as well own up."

Scott shrugged his shoulders abruptly, disdainfully, and turned from him.
"If you choose to amuse yourself at your daughter's expense, I cannot
prevent you," he said. "But there is not a grain of truth in your
insinuation. I repudiate it absolutely."

"My dear fellow, that's a bit thick," laughed Bathurst; he had found
the vulnerable spot, and he meant to make the most of it. "Do you
actually expect me to believe that you won her away from your brother
without knowing it? That's rather a tough proposition, too tough for my
middle-aged digestion. You've been trifling with her young affections,
but you are not man enough to own it."

"You are wrong, utterly wrong," Scott said. He restrained himself with
difficulty; for still something was at work within him urging him to be
temperate. "Dinah has never dreamed of falling in love with me. As you
say, the bare idea is m