don't be silly!" said Chris, colouring very deeply. "How could we
possibly? Everyone would say I was marrying him for his money?"

"And that is not so?" questioned Rupert.

"Of course it isn't!" She spoke with a vehemence almost fiery. "I--I'm
not such a pig as that!"

"No?" He leaned his head back upon the cushion and gazed up at her
flushed face. "What are you marrying him for?" he asked.

Chris looked back at him with a hint of defiance in her blue eyes. "What
do most people marry for?" she demanded.

He laughed carelessly. "Heaven knows! Generally because they're stupid
asses. The men want housekeepers and the women want houses, and neither
want to pay for such luxuries. Those are the two principal reasons, if
you ask me."

Chris jumped off the arm of his chair with an abruptness that seemed to
indicate some perturbation of spirit. She went to one of the long windows
that looked across the quiet square.

"Those are not our reasons, anyhow," she said, after a moment, with her
back to the cynic in the chair.

He turned his head at her words and smiled, a mischievous boyish smile
that proclaimed their relationship on the instant.

"Ye gods!" he ejaculated. "Is it possible that you're in love with him?"

Chris was silent. She seemed to be watching something in the road below
her with absorbing interest.

"You needn't trouble to keep your back turned," gibed the brotherly voice
behind her. "I can see you are the colour of beetroot even at this
distance. Curious, very! But I'm glad you are so becomingly modest. It's
the first indication of the virtue that I have ever detected in you."

"You beast!" said Chris.

She whirled suddenly round, half-laughing, half-resentful, seized a book
from a table near, and hurled it with accurate aim at her brother's head.

He flung up a dexterous hand and caught it just as the door opened
to admit Mordaunt, who had been asked to dine to meet his future
brother-in-law.

Rupert was on his feet in a moment. With the book pressed against his
heart, he swept a low bow to the advancing stranger.

"You come in the nick of time," he observed, "to preserve me from my
sister's fratricidal intentions. Perhaps you would like to arbitrate. The
offence was that I accused her of being in love--with you, of course. She
seems to think the assertion unwarrantable."

"Oh, Trevor, don't listen!" besought Chris. "He only goes on like that
because he thinks it's clever. Do snub him as he d