His sister shrugged her shoulders.

"A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it
seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is
she?"

Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh.

"Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's
somebody's something--Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course
her mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the
Cromartys. Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question."

"Why?"

"If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but
your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be
a snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly
enough!"

"After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her
great-mothers, even if she had any."

She shrugged her shoulders again.

"My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the
blood in these cases."

"Rot!" said he.

"Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."

He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen
anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her
lips, and then abruptly her brother said:

"I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!"

She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless.

"They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the
consequences seem pretty inevitable."

She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started
in his chair.

"What do you know?" he demanded.

"Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually
known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir."

"Then there _is_ something between them?"

She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the
nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh.

"Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go
and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of
it!"

His sister sat very still after he had left the room.

VIII

SIR REGINALD

Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he
pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually
serious expression.

"Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he.

"You won't tell me where you've been!"

He was silent for a moment and then said confidentia