etary."

"Yes?" said Mordaunt.

He betrayed no surprise, but the word fell curtly, as if he found himself
face to face with an unpleasant task and desired to be through with it as
quickly as possible.

Aunt Philippa proceeded with just a hint of caution. "My dear Trevor,
surely you are aware of the danger!"

"What danger?"

A difficult question, which Aunt Philippa answered with diplomacy. "Chris
was always something of a flirt."

"Indeed!" said Mordaunt again.

His manner was so non-committal that Aunt Philippa began to lose her
patience. "I should have thought that fact was patent to everyone."

"Never to me," said Chris's husband very deliberately.

Aunt Philippa smiled. "Then you are remarkably blind, my dear Trevor.
Flightiness has been her chief characteristic all her life. If you have
not yet found that out, I fear she must be deceitful as well."

"I am not discussing my wife's character," Mordaunt made answer very
steadily.

"You prefer to shut your eyes to the obvious," said Aunt Philippa,
beginning to be aware of something formidable in her path but not quite
grasping its magnitude.

"I prefer my own estimate of her to that of anyone else," he made quiet
reply.

Aunt Philippa made a slight gesture of uneasiness. The steady gaze was
becoming a hard thing to meet. Had the man been less phlegmatic, she
could almost have imagined him to be in a white heat of anger. He was so
unnaturally quiet, his whole being concentrated, as it were, in a
composure that she could not but feel to be ominous.

It was with an effort that the woman who sat facing him resumed her
self-appointed task. "That I can well understand," she said. "But even
so, I think you should bear in mind that Chris is young--and frail. You
are not justified in exposing her to temptation."

"As how?"

Aunt Philippa hesitated for the first time in actual perturbation.

Mordaunt waited immovably.

"I think," she said at length, "that you would be very ill-advised if you
went to town and left her here--thrown entirely upon her own resources."

"May I ask if you are still referring to my secretary?" he said.

She bent her head. "I have never approved of her being upon such intimate
terms with him. She treats him as if--as if--"

"As if he were her brother," said Mordaunt quietly. "I do the same. I
have many friends, but he is the one man in the world who possesses my
entire confidence. For that reason I foster their friendship, for