e, pushed the writing-pad from him, and, leaning back
in his chair, puffed at his cigar. In the moment of reflection, the
impression of Alicia's unexplained agitation revived in his memory.

"I don't believe," he mused, "that she expected me to say Coxon. I
wonder if there's some one else; it looked like it. But who the deuce
could it be here? It can't be Heseltine or Flemyng--they're not her
sort--and there's no one else. Ah! the mail came in this morning,
perhaps it's some one at home. That must be it. I like that fellow's
impudence. Wonder who the other chap is. Perhaps I was wrong--you can't
tell with women, they always manage to get excited about something. I
swear there was nothing before I came out, and there's no one here,
and----"

"Mr. Kilshaw," announced Jackson.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUT OF HARM'S WAY.

"I don't see what business it is of his," said Dick to his brother the
next afternoon. "I call it infernal impertinence."

Lord Eynesford differed.

"Well, I don't," he said. "He did it with great tact, and I'm very much
obliged to him."

"I wish people would leave my affairs alone," Dick grumbled.

"Has it gone very far?" asked his brother, ignoring the grumble.

"Depends upon what you call far. There's nothing settled, if that's what
you mean."

"I don't know that I've any exact right to interfere, but isn't it about
time you made up your mind whether you want it to go any farther?"

"What's the hurry?"

"Because," pursued the Governor, "it seems to me that going on as you're
doing means either that you want to marry her, or that you're making a
fool of her."

This pointed statement of the case awoke Dick's dormant conscience.

"And a cad of myself, you mean?" he asked.

"Same thing, isn't it?" replied his brother curtly.

"I suppose so," Dick admitted ruefully. "Hang it, I am a fool!"

"I don't imagine you want to do anything a gentleman wouldn't do. Only,
if you do, you won't do it from my house--that's all."

"All right, old chap. Don't be so precious down on me. I didn't mean any
harm. A fellow gets led on, you know--no, I don't mean by her--by
circumstances, you know."

"I grant you she's pretty and pleasant, but she won't have a _sou_,
and--well, Medland's a very clever fellow and very distinguished.
But----"

"No, I know. They're not our sort."

"Then of course it's no use blinking the fact that there's something
wrong. I don't know what, but something."

"Did Kilshaw