xplain themselves to each other. Both knew how to make-believe.

"If you're not afraid of a scandal at being alone with me so far from a
chaperone," the girl answered lightly.

He burlesqued a sigh. "I'm only afraid there won't be any. It's the
penalty of age, my dear. I can claim all sorts of privileges without
making Verinder jealous."

"Oh, Verinder," she scoffed.

"Should I have said Kilmeny?" he asked.

"I'll tell you a secret, guardy," whispered Moya gayly. "You're a
hundred years younger than either of them."

"I wish my glass told me so."

"Fiddlesticks! Youth is in the heart. Mr. Verinder has never been young
and Captain Kilmeny has forgotten how to be."

"I fancy Ned would be willing to learn how again if he had the proper
teacher."

She gave his arm a little squeeze. "You dear old matchmaker."

"Heaven forbid! I'm merely inquiring, my dear."

"Oh, I see--your _in-loco-parentis_ duty."

"Exactly. So it isn't going to be Ned?"

She looked across the turbid moonlit river before she answered. "I don't
think so."

"Nor Verinder?"

"Goodness, no!" A little ripple of laughter flowed from her lips before
she added: "He's changed his mind. It's Joyce he wants now."

Farquhar selected a cigar from the case. "Hm! Sure you didn't change it
for him?"

A dimple flashed into her cheeks. "I may have helped a little, but not
half as much as Joyce."

"That young woman is a born flirt," Lord Farquhar announced, his beard
and the lower part of his face in the sudden glow of the lighted match.
"Upon my word, I saw her making eyes at your highwayman the night we had
him here."

There was a moment's silence before she answered. "Anybody could see
that he was interested in her."

"It doesn't matter to me who interests him, but I can't have any of my
wards being romantic over a Dick Turpin," he replied lightly.

She was standing in the shadow, so that he could not see the dye sweep
into her cheeks.

"I'm afraid he is going to disappoint you. He's not a highwayman at
all."

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I know it."

"Looks to me as if he might make a good one. The fellow is cool as a
cucumber and afraid of nothing on two legs or four."

"You forget he is India's cousin."

"No, I'm remembering that. His father had a devil of a temper and his
mother was as wild as an unbroken colt when I met her."

"They weren't thieves, were they?" she flashed.

He gave her his frank smile. "You like this young