There was something so exquisitely unusual about his frank avowal of poverty that Vanna had hard work to keep a straight face. What to another man would have been a secret between himself and his banker weighed so heavily on Robert Gloucester's candid soul that he must needs blurt it out on the first possible occasion. Vanna knew intuitively the exact workings of his mind: he had come down to Seacliff to woo Jean for his wife. Jean must know from the beginning exactly what he had to offer; not for a single evening could she be allowed to think of him in a setting which did not exist. "He had not been lucky in his speculations." Unnecessary explanation! It was from guileless natures such as his that the fraudulent made their hoards. The national savings bank would be the only safe resting-place for Robert Gloucester's money. When the simple meal was over the two girls accompanied their guest into the garden and sat beside him while he smoked. He neither offered cigarettes to them, nor did they dream of providing them on their own account. In the seventies it was still a rare and petrifying experience to see a young girl smoke. The heroine of to-day is depicted to us as making dainty play with her cigarette, or blowing smoke-rings with unequalled grace. If the tips of her fingers are also stained yellow with nicotine, and her clothes diffuse an atmosphere of a smoking-carriage, these details are mercifully concealed. Jean and Vanna at least had no hankerings after this masculine amusement. Once and again as the time passed by, Robert looked fixedly at Vanna, and grey eyes and brown exchanged an unspoken duel. "Leave us alone!" entreated the brown. "You know; you understand! As you are wise be merciful..." "Not one step!" replied the grey. "Here I am, and here I stay. This is my post, and I will stick to it." "Be hanged to your post! You take too much upon yourself. Hand over your post to me. Think of the difficulties, the contrivings, the explainings I have had to undergo before getting away from town!" "You had no business to leave..." Vanna stuck obstinately to her guns, and at last Gloucester abandoned his efforts. Another man would have been angry, impatient, would have eyed her with cold antagonism, but Robert betrayed no irritation. Rather did his brown eyes dilate with mischievous amusement as they met her own. "Please yourself," they seemed to say. "Do your little best. Erect your puny barriers. A day or two more or less--what does it matter? The end is sure."