.

"Will you come and help me water some of the flowers, Mr Glanton?" said
Miss Sewin, after we had offsaddled and generally settled ourselves.
"No--don't say you are going back. Mother is very nervous to-night, and
I know you are going to add to your kindness to us by sleeping here."

Again I trod on air--and yet--and yet--I felt that I was acting like a
fool. What on earth could come of it--at any rate to my advantage?
Yet, again--why not?

"I want you to promise me something, Mr Glanton, will you?" Miss Sewin
said, when dusk and the lateness of the hour had put an end to what was
to me one of the most delightful half hours I ever remember spending,
for we had spent it alone, she chatting in that free and natural manner
of hers, I agreeing with everything, as the entrancement of listening to
her voice and watching her grace of movement wound itself more and more
around me.

"I think I may safely promise you anything, Miss Sewin," I answered.
"Well? What is it?"

"I want you to promise me not to quarrel with my cousin--no matter how
rude and provoking he may be."

"Is that all? Why of course I will."

"Ah but--you may not find it so easy," she went on, speaking earnestly,
and her wide open glance full on my face. "I have been noticing his
behaviour towards you of late, and admiring your forbearance. But as a
personal favour to myself, don't quarrel with him."

"Oh, I still think that'll be an easy promise to keep," I said; and yet,
the very fact that she was so anxious on the subject seemed to make the
other way. Why was she?

She shook her head slightly and smiled, as though reading my thoughts.

"You see, we are all so friendly together, are we not?" she said. "And
a man of your experience and good sense can afford to put up with a good
deal from a mere boy who hasn't much of either."

"Why of course," I answered easily, and reassured by her tactful
explanation. Yet--was Falkner such "a mere boy" after all?

CHAPTER NINE.

HENSLEY'S NEXT-OF-KIN.

It is a strange, and I suppose a wholesomely-humiliating thing that we
are appointed to go through life learning how little we know ourselves.
Here was I, a man no longer young, with considerable experience of the
ways of the world, rough and smooth, and under the fixed impression that
if there was one man in the said wide and wicked world whom I knew
thoroughly, in and out, from the crown of his hat to the soles of his
boots--or _velschoenen_