Before he could speak, Lady Kesters turned to the butler, and said-- “Payne, if any one should call, I am not at home.” “Very good, my lady,” he replied, and softly closed the door. A maid, who happened to be on the landing, witnessed the recent arrival and overheard the order, now winked at Payne with easy impudence, and gave a significant sniff. “I don’t know what you’re sniffing about,” he said peevishly. “I suppose you will allow her ladyship to receive her own brother in peace and comfort, seeing as he is just back from South America, and she hasn’t laid eyes on him for near a year.” “Oh, so that’s her brother, is it?” said the young woman; “and an uncommonly fine young chap--better looking than her ladyship by long chalks!” “You go down to your tea and leave her ladyship’s looks alone. I don’t know what you’re doing hanging about this landing at such an hour of the day.” Payne was an old servant in the Wynyard family, and he was aware it had been generally said that “Master Owen had the looks and Miss Leila the brains.” Master Owen was always a wild, harum-scarum young fellow, and it wasn’t at all unlikely that he had got into one of his scrapes. With this conviction implanted in his mind, Payne deliberately descended the stairs, issued an edict to one of the footmen, and retired into his lair and the evening paper. CHAPTER II BROTHER AND SISTER “Well,” began Lady Kesters, as the door closed, “I suppose you have seen him?” “I have very much seen him,” replied her brother, who had thrown himself into a chair; “I did a sprint across the park, because I know your ladyship cannot bear to be kept waiting. Everything must be done to the minute in this establishment.” “Yes,” she agreed; “and you come from a country where time is no object--everything is for ‘To-morrow.’ Now, tell me about Uncle Richard. Was he furious?” “No; I believe I would have got off better if he had been in a rage. He received me in a ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ frame of mind, spoke as deliberately as if he had written his speech, and learnt it by heart; he meant every word he said.” “I doubt it,” said his sister, who had been filling the teapot, and now closed the lid with a decisive snap. “Let me hear all you can remember.” “He said he had done his best for me since I was a kid--his only brother’s son and his heir,--that he had sent me to Eton----” “As if you didn’t know that!” she interrupted. “Engineered me into the Service----” “Yes, yes, yes!” with a wave of her hand. “Tell me something new.” “He says that he is sick of me and my failures--is that new?” “What does he propose?” asked Lady Kesters. “He proposes that, for a change, I should try and get along by myself, and no longer hang on to other people.” “Well, there is some sense in that.” “He says that if I continue as I’ve begun, I’ll develop into the awful loafer who haunts men’s clubs, trying to borrow half a sov. from old pals, and worrying them with begging letters.”