t still be described at a stretch as young men. If we decide
to remain Isobel's guardians, there is a further and a deeper duty
devolving upon us than the obvious one of treating her with all respect.
It is possible that she might come to feel a preference for one of us--a
sense of gratitude, the natural sentiment of her coming womanhood, even
the fact of continual propinquity might encourage it. Isobel is
charming; she will be beautiful. The position, if any one of us relaxed
in the slightest degree, might become critical. You must understand what
I mean, I am sure, even if I am not expressing it very clearly. Isobel
sees few, if any, other men. It is possible, it is almost certain, that
she belongs to a class whose position and ideas are far removed from
ours. There must be no sentimental relations established between her and
any one of us. We are her brothers, she is our sister. So it must remain
while she is under our charge. This must be agreed upon between us."

There was a dead, almost an ominous, silence. Mabane was standing with
his arms folded, and his face turned a little away. I appealed first to
him.

"Allan," I said, "you agree with me?"

"Absolutely!" he answered. "I agree with every word you have said."

I turned to Arthur.

"And you, Arthur?"

He did not at once reply. The colour was coming and going in his cheeks,
and he was playing nervously with his watchchain. When he raised his
eyes to mine, the slight belligerency of his earlier manner was more
clearly defined.

"I think," he said, "that there is another side to the question. Isobel
is the sort of girl whom fellows are bound to notice. Besides, being so
jolly good-looking, she is such ripping good form, and that sort of
thing. What you are proposing, Arnold, is simply that we should stand on
one side altogether and leave Isobel for any other fellow who happens to
come along."

"It scarcely amounts to that," I answered. "No other man is likely to
see much of her while she is under our care. Afterwards, of course, the
conditions are different. Our covenant, the covenant to which I am
asking you to agree, comes to an end when she leaves us."

"You see," Arthur protested, "it is a little different, isn't it, for
you fellows? Not that I'm comparing myself with you, of course, in any
sort of way. You're both heaps cleverer than I am, and all that, but
Isobel and I are nearer the same age, and we've been about together such
a lot, motoring and