vile, sitting up.

"Who says I haven't?"

"No one, if you don't."

"I should hope not!"

Then Felicity murmured relentingly--

"Dear Chetwode! He's so heavenly in some ways. No, I won't worry and
oppose him, it's a fatal mistake. We'll make it up to you later--stay
with you on the river in August or something. What price you, dear?
What's your trouble?"

Savile fumbled a good deal with a tassel, laughed mirthlessly, frowned
gloomily, and then said with a jerk: "What price me? No price. It's her.
You know."

Felicity replied patiently.

"You always say that, and you never get any further,--never."

"Well, my dear, don't you see--there's two things."

"Go on."

"What ought a chap to do who,--I've consulted men of the world, and yet
I think you know best. You're so celebrated as a confidante."

"Well?" said his sister.

"What ought a chap to do--who ... oh, well ... if a chap--say a chap
has--well--a girl, say, frightfully keen on him (for the sake of the
argument), and she's a decent sort of girl, and at the same time the
poor chap is frightfully keen on another girl, who is frightfully keen
on another chap--who is a very decent chap too, mind you ... what ought
he to do?"

"Which chap, Savile?"

"Oh, don't be so muddle-headed, Felicity! Pull yourself together, can't
you? _Me_, of course!"

"Oh, you!"

"Yes."

"You mean Dolly Clive is in love with you" (Savile winced at the
feminine explicitness), "and you are in love with some one else, and
it's quite hopeless."

"I don't quite say that. But there are tremendous difficulties."

"Is she married? Oh, I do believe she's married. Oh, Savile! How
extraordinary and horrid of you!"

"Oh, it's all right, Felicity," said Savile, with a reassuring nod, at
which she laughed.

"I'm sure it is, dear. But who on earth is it?"

Savile took a photograph out of his pocket, and blushingly showed it to
his sister, with his head turned away.

As she looked at it her face expressed the most unfeigned bewilderment.

"Aunt William? But this is very sudden.... Oh, it's some mistake,
surely! You _can't_ be in love with Aunt William!"

With a howl of fury Savile snatched the portrait from her.

It was a quaint, faded photograph of an elderly aunt of his taken in the
early seventies. It represented a woman with an amiable expression and a
pointed face; parted hair, with a roll on the top, and what was in those
days known as an Alexandra curl on the left should