k. "Arabella is going to get
her mother to come down," she went on, "and you will be safe here with
these devoted old ladies and your Brome who is plainly in love with you,
poor thing!" and she laughed gayly. "Say you think it is best, too,
John, dearest?"

"Whatever you wish," he answered with some sudden quick sense of relief.
"I know I am an awful bore lying here, and I shall not be able to crawl
to a sofa even for another week, these doctors say."

"You are not a bore--you are a darling," she murmured, patting his hand.
"And if only I were allowed to stay with you--night and day--and nurse
you like Brome, I should be perfectly happy. But these snatched
scraps--John, darling, I can't bear it!"

He wondered if she were lying. He half thought so, but she looked so
beautiful, it enabled him to return her caresses with some tepid warmth.

"It is too sweet of you, Cecilia," he said, as he kissed her. He had not
yet used one word of intimate endearment--she had never been his
darling, his sweet and his own, like Halcyone.

After she had gone again, all details having been settled for her
departure upon the Monday, he almost felt that he hated her. For, when
she was in this apparently loving mood, it seemed as if her bonds
tightened round his throat and strangled him to death. "Octopus arms" he
remembered Cheiron had called them.

When Mrs. Cricklander got back to her own favorite long seat out on the
terrace, she sat down, and settling the pillows under her head, she let
her thoughts ticket her advantages gained, in her usual concrete
fashion.

"He is absolutely mine, body and soul. He does not love me--we shall
have the jolliest time seeing who will win presently--but I have got the
dollars, so there is no doubt of the result--and what fun it will be! It
does not matter what I do now, he cannot break away from me. He has let
me see plainly that my money has influenced him--and, although
Englishmen are fools, in his class they are ridiculously honorable. I've
got him!" and she laughed aloud. "It is all safe, he will not break the
bargain!"

So she wrote an interesting note to Mr. Hanbury-Green with a pencil on
one of the blocks which she kept lying about for any sudden use--and
then strolled into the house for an envelope.

And, as John Derringham lay in the darkened room upstairs, he presently
heard her joyous voice as she played tennis with his secretary, and the
reflection he made was:

"Good Lord, how than