cursed egotism of your sex. What right
have you to make us suffer so--to ask me to marry you--and sit by my
side and wonder whether you care for another woman? Can't you see how
humiliating it all is? It is an insult to ask a woman to marry you to
cure your loneliness, to make you a home to settle your indecision. It
is an insult to ask a woman to marry you for any reason except that you
care for her more than any other woman in the world, and can tell her so
trustfully, eagerly. Please to put me in a cab at once, and never speak
of these things again."

She was half-way across the lawn before he could stop her, her head
thrown back, carrying herself proudly and well, moving as it seemed to
him with a sort of effortless dignity wholly in keeping with the vigour
of her words. He obeyed her literally. There was nothing else for him
to do. His slight effort to join her in the cab she firmly repulsed,
holding out her hand and speaking a few cheerful words of thanks for her
evening's entertainment. And when the cab rolled away Brooks felt
lonelier than ever.

CHAPTER X

LADY SYBIL SAYS "YES"

The carriage plunged into the shadow of the pine-woods, and commenced
the long uphill ascent to Saalburg. Lady Caroom put down her parasol
and turned towards Sybil, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed upon the
narrow white belt of road ahead.

"Now, Sybil," she said, "for our talk."

"Your talk," Sybil corrected her, with a smile.

I'm to be listener."

"Oh, it may not be so one-sided after all," Lady Caroom declared. "And
we had better make haste, or that impetuous young man of yours will come
pounding after us on his motor before we know where we are. What are
you going to do about him, Sybil?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you'll have to make up your mind. He's getting on my nerves.
You must decide one way or another."

Sybil sighed.

"He's quite the nicest young man I know--of his class," she remarked.

"Exactly," Lady Caroom assented. "And though I think you will admit
that I am one of the least conventional of mothers, I must really say I
don't think that it is exactly a comfortable thing to do to marry a man
who is altogether outside one's own circle."

"Mr. Brooks," Sybil said, "is quite as well bred as Atherstone."

"He is his equal in breeding and in birth," Lady Caroom declared. "You
know all about him. I admit," she continued, "that it sounds like a
page out of a novel. But it isn't. The only pity is--from o