insisted on coming to
her aid. Then he saw, with something of a shock, that a glass of
absinthe stood on the table. Things must, indeed, be in a bad way if
his father drank absinthe at half-past ten in the morning.

However, he hid his disapproval, and sitting down on another
uncomfortable chair, he said gently, "What does it mean when a lady is
compromised, sir?"

"It means that some accident or other has given malignant fools a
chance of gossipping about her," said Sir Tancred in an unamiable tone.

"And the man has to marry her?"

"Of course he has," snapped Sir Tancred.

"Ah!" said Tinker with supreme thoughtful satisfaction.

His father looked at him for a good minute with considerable suspicion,
wondering what new mischief he was hatching. But Tinker looked like a
guileless seraph pondering the innocent joys of the Islands of the
Blessed, to a degree which made such a suspicion a very shameful thing
indeed. Partly reassured, Sir Tancred returned to his brooding: he was
angry with himself because he felt helpless in an _impasse_. On the
one hand, he could not bring himself to fly from Dorothy; on the other,
he could not bring himself to abate his pride, and ask her to marry
him. She was so rich; Septimus Rainer had talked of settling five
million dollars on her. He looked again at the pondering Tinker; and
his helpless irritation found the natural English vent in grumbling.

"Look here," he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "I told you
that if you went on adding to our household, I should be travelling
about Europe with a caravan. You began by adopting Elsie as a sister,
and I said nothing. Then you added Miss Rainer as her governess, and I
warned you. Miss Rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added
a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective.
All these people, I know them well, will marry; and I shall be a
patriarch travelling with my tribe. It must stop."

Tinker sighed. "We are a large household--twelve of us, with Selina,"
he said thoughtfully. "But you might make it more compact, sir."

"More compact--how?"

"You might marry Dorothy; and then you and she could count as one."

A sudden light of exasperation brightened Sir Tancred's eyes, and he
made a grab at Tinker's arm. His hand closed on empty air; Tinker was
flying like the wind along the promenade.

"Tinker!" roared Sir Tancred; but Tinker went round a corner at the
moment at which on