ld feel perfectly
disinterested in marrying him. It will do her good to marry without
making a pecuniary profit by it; she will respect herself the more
afterwards, and will neither want bread and butter nor be ashamed of
her husband's origin, in spite of having married for love alone. Make
a match of it if you can. I take an interest in the girl; she has good
instincts."

Sir Charles's suspicion that Trefusis was really paying court to Agatha
returned after this conversation, which he repeated to Erskine, who,
much annoyed because his poems had been shown to a reader of Blue Books,
thought it only a blind for Trefusis's design upon Gertrude. Sir Charles
pooh-poohed this view, and the two friends were sharp with one another
in discussing it. After dinner, when the ladies had left them, Sir
Charles, repentant and cordial, urged Erskine to speak to Gertrude
without troubling himself as to the sincerity of Trefusis. But Erskine,
knowing himself ill able to brook a refusal, was loth to expose himself.

"If you had heard the tone of her voice when she asked him whether
he was in earnest, you would not talk to me like this," he said
despondently. "I wish he had never come here."

"Well, that, at least, was no fault of mine, my dear fellow," said Sir
Charles. "He came among us against my will. And now that he appears to
have been in the right--legally--about the field, it would look like
spite if I cut him. Besides, he really isn't a bad man if he would only
let the women alone."

"If he trifles with Miss Lindsay, I shall ask him to cross the Channel,
and have a shot at him."

"I don't think he'd go," said Sir Charles dubiously. "If I were you, I
would try my luck with Gertrude at once. In spite of what you heard, I
don't believe she would marry a man of his origin. His money gives
him an advantage, certainly, but Gertrude has sent richer men to the
rightabout."

"Let the fellow have fair play," said Erskine. "I may be wrong, of
course; all men are liable to err in judging themselves, but I think I
could make her happier than he can."

Sir Charles was not so sure of that, but he cheerfully responded,
"Certainly. He is not the man for her at all, and you are. He knows it,
too."

"Hmf!" muttered Erskine, rising dejectedly. "Let's go upstairs."

"By-the-bye, we are to call on him to-morrow, to go through his house,
and his collection of photographs. Photographs! Ha, ha! Damn his house!"
said Erskine.

Next day they