. Assumed at a moment like this it was a vulgar
absurdity. He met Mackenzie's look with a cool contempt.

But the challenge, and the reply to it, had occupied but a moment.
Cicely had looked up and cried, "O Dick!" and had tried to rise from her
chair to come to him, but could not. The tone in which she uttered that
appeal for mercy and protection made Jim Graham wince, but it did not
seem to affect her brother. "Go and get ready to come with us," he said.

Jim had never taken his eyes off Cicely since he had entered the room,
but she did not look at him. She sat in her chair, trembling a little,
her eyes upon her brother's face, which was now turned toward her with
no expression in it but a cold authority.

She stood up with difficulty, and Jim took half a step forward. But
Mackenzie broke in, with a gesture towards her. "Come now, Captain
Clinton," he said. "You have found us out; but I am going to marry your
sister. You are not going to take her away, you know." He spoke in a
tone of easy good humour. The air, slightly theatrical, as it had
seemed, with which he had faced their intrusion, had disappeared.

Dick took no notice of him whatever. "I am going to take you up to
Muriel," he said to Cicely. "There's a cab waiting. Have you anything to
get, or are you ready to come now?"

She turned to go to her room, but Mackenzie interposed again. "Stay
here, please," he said. "We won't take our orders from Captain Clinton.
Look here, Clinton, I dare say this has been a bit of a shock to you,
and I'm sorry it had to be done in such a hurry. But everything is
straight and honest. I want to marry your sister, and she wants to marry
me. She is of age and you can't stop her. I'm going to make her a good
husband, and she's going to make me the best of wives."

He still spoke good-humouredly, with the air of a man used to command
who condescends to reason. He knew his power and was accustomed to
exercise it, with a hand behind his back, so to speak, upon just such
young men as these; men who were socially his superiors, and on that
very account to be kept under, and taught that there was no such thing
as social superiority where his work was to be done, but only leader and
led.

But still Dick took no notice of him. "Come along, Cicely," he said,
with a trifle of impatience.

Mackenzie shrugged his shoulders angrily. "Very well," he said, "if
you've made up your mind to take that fool's line, take it and welcome.
Only yo