Langdon exhaled a deep breath before replying. "That is something I’ve been worried about," he admitted. "From little things she has dropped I imagine this same Luke King used to be very fond of her before he left for the West. They have met since he got back, and I’m afraid she—" "Good gracious! that puts another face on the business," said Sively. "I don’t mean any disparagement to you, but if—if there ever was any understanding between them, and he has come back such a success, why, it isn’t unlikely that you’d have a rival worth giving attention to. A man of that sort rarely ever makes a mistake in marrying. If he is after that girl, you’ve got an interesting fight ahead of you—that is, if you intend to buck against him. Now, I see, I’ve made you mad." "Do you think I’d let a man of his birth and rearing thwart me?" Langdon cried—"a mountain cracker, a clodhopper, an uncouth, unrefined—" "Stop! you are going too far," said Sively, quickly. "Our old idea that refinement can only come from silk-lined cradles is about exploded. It seems to me that refinement is as natural as a love of art, music, or poetry. And not only has that chap got refinement of a decided sort, but he’s got a certain sort of pride that makes him step clean over a reverence for our defunct traditions. When he meets a scion of the old aristocracy his clear eye doesn’t waver as he stares steadily into the face as if to see if the old régime has left a fragment of brains there worth inspecting. Oh, he gets along all right in society! The Holts had him at the club reception and dinner the other night, and our best women were actually _asking_ to be introduced to him, and—" "But why are you telling all this stuff to me?" Langdon thundered, as he rose angrily to signify that he was ready to go. "Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because you’ve simply got to know the genuine strength of your rival, if he _is_ that, and you have to cross swords with him. If the fellow really intends to win that girl, he will perhaps display a power in the undertaking that you never saw. I’d as soon fight a buzz-saw with bare hands as to tackle him in a fight for a woman’s love. Oh, I’ve got started, my boy, and I’ll have to reel it all off, and be done with it. There is one thing you may get mad and jealous enough to do—that is, in case you are this fellow King’s rival—" "What do you mean? What did you start to say?" Langdon glared down at his cousin.