ere underground if you're
going to be an owl. . . . And don't feed that cat on the rugs. . . .
Good-night."

"Good-night," nodded Selwyn, relighting his cigar.

He had no intention of remaining very long; he supposed that his sister
and Eileen would be out late, wherever they were, and he merely meant to
dream a bit longer before going back to bed.

He had been smoking for half an hour perhaps, lying deep in his chair,
worn features dully illuminated by the sinking fire; and he was thinking
about going--had again relighted his partly consumed cigar to help him
with its fragrant companionship on his dark route homeward, when he
heard a footfall on the landing, and turned to catch a glimpse of Gerald
in overcoat and hat, moving silently toward the stairs.

"Hello, old fellow!" he said, surprised. "I didn't know you were in the
house."

The boy hesitated, turned, placed something just outside the doorway,
and came quickly into the room.

"Philip!" he said with a curious, excited laugh, "I want to ask you
something. I never yet came to you without asking something and--you
never have failed me. Would you tell me now what I had better do?"

"Certainly," said Selwyn, surprised and smiling; "ask me, old fellow.
You're not eloping with some nice girl, are you?"

"Yes," said Gerald, calm in his excitement, "I am."

"What?" repeated Selwyn gravely; "what did you say?

"You guessed it. I came home and dressed and I'm going back to the
Craigs' to marry a girl whose mother and father won't let me have her."

"Sit down, Gerald," said Selwyn, removing the cigar from his lips; but:

"I haven't time," said the boy. "I simply want to know what you'd do if
you loved a girl whose mother means to send her to London to get rid
of me and marry her to that yawning Elliscombe fellow who was over
here. . . . What would you do? She's too young to stand much of a siege
in London--some Englishman will get her if he persists--and I mean to
make her love me."

"Oh! Doesn't she?"

"Y-es. . . . You know how young girls are. Yes, she does--now. But a
year or two with that crowd--and the duchess being good to her, and
Elliscombe yawning and looking like a sleepy Lohengrin or some damned
prince in his Horse Guards' helmet!--Selwyn, I can see the end of it.
She can't stand it; she's too young not to get over it. . . . So, what
would you do?"

"Who is she, Gerald?"

"I won't tell you."

"Oh! . . . Of course she's the right sort?"

"P