nd besides," he says, with a valiant determination to follow his
cross-examination to its bitter end, "you have successfully got rid of
the man you hate. I refer to Roger."

"I suppose so." Just the same answer, in just the same tone.

Sir Mark is plainly indignant. Perhaps he had hoped to see her betray
some emotion on the mention of her cousin's name, but if so he is
disappointed.

"You grow apathetic," he says, somewhat sharply. "Soon you will care for
nothing. A bad trick for any girl to learn."

"I have learned that trick already. I care for very little now," says
Dulce, in a perfectly even tone. Her hands, lying in her lap, are
without motion. Her eyelids are without a tremor. "And yet she is _not_
heartless," says Sir Mark to himself, reflectively. "I suppose she is
only acting for my special benefit, and though it is rather a good
performance, it is of no earthly use, as I can see right through her."

Nevertheless he is angry with her, and presently rising, he goes away
from her to where Dicky Browne is holding high revelry amongst his
friends.

Dicky has only just arrived. He has been absent all day, and is now
being questioned--desired to give an account of himself and his time
ever since breakfast-time.

"It is something new to be asked where I have been," says Mr. Browne,
who also thinks it will be as new as it is nice for him to take the
aggrieved tone and go in heavily on the ill-used tack.

"Never mind that," says Julia; "tell us only--where _have_ you been?"

"Well, really, I hardly quite know," says Dicky, delightfully vague as
usual. "Round about the place, don't you know."

"But you must remember where?"

"As a rule," says Mr. Browne, meditatively, "I come and go, and no
account is taken of my wanderings. To-night all is different, now I am
put under a cross-examination that reduces me to despair. This is
unfair, it is cruel. If you would always act thus it would be
gratifying, but to get up an interest in me on rare occasions such as
the present, is, to say the least of it, embarrassing. I am half an
orphan, some of you might be a father to me sometimes."

"So we will, Dicky, in a body," says Mark Gore, cheerfully.

"I like that," says Portia, laughing. "Instead of looking after _you_,
Dicky, I rather think we want some one to look after _us_."

"Well, I'll do that with pleasure," says Mr. Browne. "It is my highest
ambition. To be allowed to look after you has been the dream of my lif