istically. "I only know
the other sort by hearsay."

"Isn't he absurd?" laughed Chris. "He always talks like that. And there
are crowds of people worse off than he is."

"Query," remarked her brother, with a shrug of the shoulders; but an
instant later, aware of Mordaunt's look, he changed the subject.

They were a small party at dinner, for there remained but Hilda Forest to
complete the number. She had only that afternoon returned to town. Mrs.
Forest was dining out, to Chris's unfeigned relief. For Chris was in high
spirits that night, and only in her aunt's absence could she give them
full vent.

But, if gay, she was also provokingly elusive. Mordaunt had never seen
her so effervescent, so sublimely inconsequent, or so naively bewitching
as she was throughout the meal. Rupert, reckless and _debonnaire_,
encouraged her wild mood. As his youngest brother expressed it, he and
Chris 'generally ran amok' when they got together. And Hilda, the sedate,
rather pensive daughter of the house, was far too gentle to restrain
them.

It was impossible to hold aloof from such light-hearted merry-making, and
Mordaunt went with the tide. Perhaps instinct warned him that it was the
surest way to overcome that barrier of shyness, unacknowledged but none
the less existent, that kept him still a stranger to his little
_fiancee's_ confidence. Her dainty daring notwithstanding, he was aware
of the fact that she was yet half afraid of him, though when he came to
seek the cause of this he was utterly at a loss.

When he and Rupert were left alone together after dinner, they were
already far advanced upon the road to intimacy. It was the result of his
deliberate intention; for though a girl might keep him outside her inner
sanctuary, it seldom happened in the world of men that Trevor Mordaunt
could not obtain a free pass whithersoever he cared to go.

Rupert tossed aside his gaiety with characteristic suddenness almost as
soon as the door had closed upon his sister and cousin.

"I suppose you want to get to business," he said abruptly. "I'm ready
when you are."

Mordaunt moved into an easy-chair. "Yes, I want to make a suggestion," he
said deliberately. "But it is not a matter that you and I can carry
through single-handed. I want to talk about it, that's all."

Rupert, his elbows on the table, nodded and stared rather gloomily into
his coffee-cup. "I suppose it'll take about a year to fix it up. Anything
with a lawyer in it does