when he's roused and he's filled to the brim with good
old-fashioned notions about a man being master in his own house, et
cetera. And no man will ever be master in his own house while Nan's in
it--unless he breaks her."

St. John stirred restlessly.

"Things are a bit complicated sometimes, aren't they?" he said in a
rather tired voice. "Still"--with an effort--"we must hope for the
best. You've jumped far ahead of the actual state of affairs at
present."

"Roger's tagging round after her from morning to night."

"He's not the first man to do that," submitted Lord. St. John, smiling,
"Nan is--Nan, you know, and you mustn't assume too much from Roger's
liking to be with her. I'm sure if I were one of her contemporary
young men, I should 'tag round' just like the rest of 'em. So don't
meet trouble half way."

"Optimist!" said Kitty.

"Oh, no." The disclaimer came quickly. "Philosopher."

"I can't be philosophical, unluckily."

"My dear, we have no choice. It isn't we who move the pieces in the
game."

A silence followed. Then, as Kitty vaguely murmured something about
tea, St. John helped her out of the hammock, and together they strolled
towards the house. They found tea in progress on the square lawn
facing the sea and every one foregathered there. Nan, apparently in
wild spirits, was fooling inimitably, and she bestowed a small,
malicious smile on Kitty as she and Lord St. John joined the group
around the tea-table.

It was a glorious afternoon. The sea lay dappled with light and shade
as the sun and vagrant breezes played with it, while for miles along
the coast the great cliffs were wrapt in a soft, quivering haze so that
the lines and curves of their vari-coloured strata, and the bleak,
sheer menace of their height, as they overhung the blue water lapping
on the sands below, were screened from view.

"There are some heavenly sandwiches here," announced Nan. "That is, if
Sandy has left any. Have you, Sandy?"

Sandy McBain grinned responsively. He was the somewhat surprising
offspring of the union between Nan's Early Victorian aunt, Eliza, and a
prosaic and entirely uninteresting Scotsman. Red-haired and freckled,
with the high cheekbones of his Celtic forebears, he was a young man of
undeniable ugliness, redeemed only by a pair of green eyes as kind and
honest as a dog's, and by a voice of surprising charm and sweetness.

"Not many," he replied easily. "I gave you all the largest,