re we go back, I
want to ask you something."

"Well?" said Jack.

She made a pathetic little gesture towards him, and touched his knee
with her riding-switch. Her blue eyes besought him very earnestly. "Jack,
we--we are pals, aren't we? Or I couldn't possibly ask it of you. Jack,
I--I've been foolish--and extravagant. And--" she became suddenly
breathless--"I want twenty pounds--to pay some debts. Jack, could
you--would you--"

"You monkey!" said Jack.

"I couldn't help it," she declared piteously. "I've spent a frightful lot
of money lately. I don't know how it goes. It runs away like water. But
I--want to get out of debt, Jack. If you will help me just this once,
I'll pay you back when--when--when I'm married."

"Good heavens, child!" he said. "You shall have it twice over if you
like. But why on earth didn't you tell me before? Don't you know it's
very naughty to run up debts?"

She nodded. "Yes, I know. But I couldn't help it. There were things I
wanted. And London is such an expensive place. You do understand, dear
Jack, don't you?"

Jack thought he did. He was, moreover, too fond of his young cousin to
treat her with severity. But he considered it his duty to deliver a brief
lecture on the dangers of insolvency, to which Chris listened with
becoming docility, thanking him with a quick, sweet smile when he had
done.

Jack did not flatter himself that he had succeeded in making a very deep
impression. He wondered a little what Trevor Mordaunt would have said
under similar circumstances.

"I hope she will be straightforward with him," was his reflection. "But
she is a Wyndham of the Wyndhams, and everyone knows that her father
didn't suffer over-much from that complaint."

Which was true. Chris's father had been one of those baffling persons who
are always in want of money and yet seem quite incapable of giving a
clear account of their wants. His affairs had been in a perpetual muddle
from the beginning of his career, and had probably ended so.

"Most unsatisfactory!" as Aunt Philippa invariably remarked, as a
suitable conclusion to any discussion on the subject of her brother or
any of his family. How she personally had managed to escape the general
blight that rested upon them was a mystery that no one--not Aunt Philippa
herself--had ever been able to solve.

CHAPTER XV

MISGIVINGS

Hilda Forest's wedding was one of the events of the season. All London
went to it. Lord Percy Davenant, th