.

"Are you--married?" she asked interestedly.

He laughed.

"No. . . . Why do you ask?"

"I was only wondering. I hope you don't think it rude of me to have
asked you. I was only thinking that--if you were married and had any
children, this is such a lovely house for them. When we were all
little we used to have such fine times. There is a beautiful garden
and a great big room that runs nearly the length of the house upstairs,
which we used to have for a nursery."

"You had brothers and sisters, then?"

"No--but Jimmy was always here; and Gladys--Gladys is the friend I am
expecting--she is like my own sister, really!"

"I see." His eyes watched her with an odd sort of tenderness in them.
"And so you have known Jimmy a great many years?" he asked.

"All my life."

"Then you know his brother as well?"

"I have met him--yes; but I dare say he has forgotten all about me."

"He will be very pleased with Jimmy's choice of a wife," he answered
her quickly. "He always had and idea that Jimmy would bring home a
golden-haired lady from behind the footlights, I think," he added
laughingly.

He broke off suddenly at sight of the pain in little Christine's face.
There was an awkward silence. Christine herself broke it.

"Shall we go and look over the house before it gets quite dark?"

She had taken off her coat and furs; she moved to the door.

Kettering followed silently. He was fully conscious that in some way
he had blundered by his laughing reference to a "golden-haired lady of
the footlights"; he felt instinctively that there was something wrong
with this little girl and her marriage--that she was not happy.

He tried to remember what sort of a fellow Jimmy had been in the old
days; but his memory of him was vague. He knew that Horace had often
complained bitterly of Jimmy's extravagance--knew that there had often
been angry scenes between the two Challoners; but he could not recall
having heard of anything actually to Jimmy's discredit.

And, anyway, surely no man on earth could ever treat this little girl
badly, even supposing--even supposing----

"It's not such a very big house," Christine was saying, and he woke
from his reverie to answer her. "But it's very pretty, don't you
think?" She opened a door on the left. "This used to be our nursery,"
she told him. They stood together on the threshold; the room was long
and low-ceilinged, with a window at each end.

A big rocking-horse covere