evade it," Brooks answered. "I am going to adopt
commercial methods and inaugurate a Board of Directors."

The bishop hesitated.

"Again, Mr. Brooks," he said, "I must address a suggestion to you which
might seem to require an apology. You have adopted methods and
expressed views with regard to your scheme which are in themselves
scarcely reconcilable with the point of view with which we churchmen are
bound to regard the same question. But if you thought it worth while
before finally arranging your Board to discuss the whole subject with
me, it would give me the greatest pleasure to have you visit me at the
palace at any time convenient to yourself."

"I shall consider it a great privilege," Brooks answered, promptly, "and
I shall not hesitate to avail myself of it."

The little party broke up soon afterwards, but Lady Caroom touched
Brooks upon his shoulder.

"Come into my room for a few minutes," she said. "I want to talk with
you."

CHAPTER VII

FATHER AND SON

"Do you know," Lady Caroom said, motioning Brooks to a seat by her side,
"that I feel very middle-class and elderly and interfering. For I am
going to talk to you about Sybil."

Brooks was a little paler than usual. This was one of those rare
occasions when he found his emotions very hard to subdue. And it had
come so suddenly.

"After we left Enton," Lady Caroom said, thoughtfully, "I noticed a
distinct change in her. The first evidences of it were in her treatment
of Sydney Molyneux. I am quite sure that she purposely precipitated
matters, and when he proposed refused him definitely."

"I do not think," Brooks found voice to say, "that she would ever have
married Sydney Molyneux."

"Perhaps not," Lady Caroom admitted, "but at any rate before our visit
to Enton she was quite content to have him around--she was by no means
eager to make up her mind definitely. After we left she seemed to
deliberately plan to dispose of him finally. Since then--I am talking
in confidence, Kingston-she has refused t e Duke of Atherstone."

Brooks was silent. His self-control was being severely tested. His
heart was beating like a sledgehammer--he was very anxious to avoid Lady
Caroom's eyes.

"Atherstone," she said, slowly, "is quite the most eligible bachelor in
England, and he is, as you know, a very nice, unaffected boy. There is
only one possible inference for me, as Sybil's mother, to draw, and that
is that she cares, or is beginning to think that she