he gentlemen who want
to get seconded from your regiment and all the other smart regiments, to
serve under me?"

"Shall we stick to the point?" asked Dick. "My cab is waiting."

Mackenzie's face looked murderous for a moment, but he had himself in
hand at once. "The point is," he said, "that I am going to marry your
sister, with her consent."

"The point is how you got her consent. I am here in place of my
father--and hers. If she marries you she marries you, but she doesn't do
it before I tell her what she is letting herself in for."

"Then perhaps you will tell her that."

"I will." Dick looked at Cicely. "I should like to ask you to begin with
when you first met--Mr. Mackenzie," he said.

"Dear Dick!" cried Cicely, "don't be so cruel. I--I--was discontented at
home, and I----"

"We met first at Graham's house," said Mackenzie, "when you were there.
I first spoke to her alone on Sunday afternoon, and she promised to come
away and marry me on Sunday night. Now go on."

"That was when you told Graham that you couldn't sleep, I suppose, in
the middle of the night."

"I walked over from Mountfield, and she came to me in the garden, as I
had asked her to. We were together about three minutes."

Dick addressed Cicely again, still with the same cold authority. "You
were discontented at home. You can tell me why afterwards. You meet this
man and hear him bragging of his great deeds, and when he takes you by
surprise and asks you to marry him, you are first of all rather
frightened, and then you think it would be an adventure to go off with
him. Is that it?"

"It's near enough," said Mackenzie, "except that I don't brag."

"I've got my own ears," said Dick, still facing Cicely. "Well, I dare
say the sort of people you're used to don't seem much beside a man who
gets himself photographed on picture postcards, but I'll tell you a few
of the things we don't do. We don't go and stay in our friends' houses
and then rob them. You belonged to Jim. You'd promised him, and this man
knew it. We don't go to other men's houses and eat their salt and make
love to their daughters behind their backs. We don't tell mean lies. We
don't ask young girls to sneak out of their homes to meet us in the
middle of the night. We respect the women we want to marry, we don't
compromise them. If this man had been a fit husband for you, he would
have asked for you openly. It's just because he knows he isn't that he
brings all his weight to b