Eton coat, he had said
good-bye to her to go to school and walked right out of their lives.

"And what are you doing now, Jimmy?" Mrs. Wyatt asked him. "I suppose
I may still call you Jimmy?" she said playfully.

"Rather! please do! I'm not doing anything, as a matter of fact,"
Challoner explained rather vaguely. "I've got rooms in the Temple, and
the great Horatio sends me a quarterly allowance, and expects me not to
live beyond it." He made a little grimace. "You remember my brother
Horace, of course!"

"Of course I do! Is he still abroad?"

"Yes, he'll never come back now; not that I want him to," Jimmy
hastened to add, with one of those little inward qualms that shook him
whenever he thought of his brother, and what that brother would say
when he knew that he was shortly to be asked to accept Cynthia Farrow
as a sister-in-law.

The great Horatio, as Jimmy disrespectfully called the head of his
family, loathed the stage. It was his one dread that some day the
blueness of his blood might run the risk of taint by being even
remotely connected with one of its members.

"He's not married, of course?" Mrs. Wyatt asked.

Challoner chuckled. "Married! Good Lord, no!" He leaned a little
forward to look at Christine.

"And you?" he asked. "Has the perfect man come along yet?"

It had been an old joke of his in the far away days, that Christine
would never marry until she found a perfect man. She had always had
such quaintly romantic fancies behind the seriousness of her beautiful
brown eyes.

She flushed now, shaking her head. "And you?" she asked. "Are you
married?"

Challoner said "No" very quickly. He wondered whether he ought to tell
them about Cynthia. The thought reminded him of his promise to go to
her after the first act. He rose hastily to his feet.

"I quite forgot. I've got an appointment. If you'll excuse me, I'll
come back, if I may."

He bowed himself off. Christine's beautiful eyes followed him
wistfully.

"I never thought he'd be half so good-looking when he grew up," she
said. "And yet somehow he hasn't altered much, has he?"

"He hasn't altered in manner in the least," Mrs. Wyatt laughed. "Fancy
him remembering about your perfect man, Christine? We must ask him to
dinner one night while we are in London. How funny, meeting him like
this. I always liked him so much. I wonder he hasn't got married,
though--a charming boy like that!" But her voice sounded as if she