iminary.

He looked up over his glasses.

"I didn't know you had any," he said with heavy humour.

"I intended going back to London and taking you with me," she said
unexpectedly.

"Back to London?" he said incredulously. "I thought you were staying on
for a month."

"I probably shall now," she said, pulling up a basket-chair and sitting
by his side. "Give me a cigarette."

"You're smoking a lot lately," he said as he handed his case to her.

"I know I am."

"Have your nerves gone wrong?"

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and her lips curled.

"It wouldn't be remarkable if I inherited a little of your yellow
streak," she said coolly, and he growled something under his breath.
"No, my nerves are all right, but a cigarette helps me to think."

"A yellow streak, have I?" Mr. Briggerland was annoyed. "And I've been
out since five o'clock this morning----" he stopped.

"Doing--what?" she asked curiously.

"Never mind," he said with a lofty gesture.

Thus they sat, busy with their own thoughts, for a quarter of an hour.

"Jean."

"Yes," she said without turning her head.

"Don't you think we'd better give this up and get back to London? Lord
Stoker is pretty keen on you."

"I'm not pretty keen on him," she said decidedly. "He has his regimental
pay and L500 a year, two estates, mortgaged, no brains and a title--what
is the use of his title to me? As much use as a coat of paint! Beside
which, I am essentially democratic."

He chuckled, and there was another silence.

"Do you think the lawyer is keen on the girl?"

"Jack Glover?"

Mr. Briggerland nodded.

"I imagine he is," said Jean thoughtfully. "I like Jack--he's clever. He
has all the moral qualities which one admires so much in the abstract. I
could love Jack myself."

"Could he love you?" bantered her father.

"He couldn't," she said shortly. "Jack would be a happy man if he saw
me stand in Jim Meredith's place in the Old Bailey. No, I have no
illusion about Jack's affections."

"He's after Lydia's money I suppose," said Mr. Briggerland, stroking his
bald head.

"Don't be a fool," was the calm reply. "That kind of man doesn't worry
about a girl's money. I wish Lydia was dead," she added without malice.
"It would make things so easy and smooth."

Her father swallowed something.

"You shock me sometimes, Jean," he said, a statement which amused her.

"You're such a half-and-half man," she said with a note of contempt in