"Oh, nothing at all," said Oliver, satirically. "All that you have got to do is to prejudice father and daughter against each other as much as possible, make Brooke believe that the girl has been set against him by her mother, and persuade Miss Brooke that her father is not the sort of man that Lady Alice can return to. Nothing definite in that, is there?" "Oliver, you are quite too bad. I never made any plans of the kind." But there was a distinctly guilty look in Mrs. Romaine's soft eyes. "Besides, that is a piece of work which hardly needs doing. Father and daughter are too much alike to get on." "Alike, are they?" "Yes, in a sense. The girl is very like her mother, too--she has Lady Alice's features and figure, but the expression of her face is her father's. And her eyes and her brow are her father's. And she is like her father--I think--in disposition." "You have found out so much that I think you scarcely need me to interview her in order to tell you more. What do you want me to do?" "I want to find out more about Lady Alice. Could you not get Ethel Kenyon to ask her about her mother, and then persuade Ethel to tell you?" "Can't take _Ethel_ into our confidence," said Oliver with a disparaging emphasis upon the name. "She is such a little fool." And then he began to roll a cigarette for himself. Mrs. Romaine watched him thoughtfully for a minute or two. "Noll," she said at length, "I thought you were really fond of Ethel?" Oliver's eyes were fixed upon the cigarette that he was now lighting, and, perhaps, that was the reason why he did not answer for a minute or two. At last, he said, in his soft, drawling way-- "I am very fond of Ethel. And especially of the twenty thousand pounds that her uncle left her." "Ethel Kenyon is handsome enough to be loved for something beside her money." "Handsome? Oh, she's good-looking enough: but she's not exactly to my taste. A little too showy, too abrupt for me. Personally I like a softer, quieter woman; but as a rule the women that I really admire haven't got twenty thousand pounds." "I know who would suit you," said Mrs. Romaine, leaning forward and speaking in a very low voice--"Lesley Brooke." "What is her fortune? If it's a case of her face is her fortune, she really won't do for me, Rosy, however suitable she might be in other respects." "But," said Mrs. Romaine, eagerly, "she is sure to have plenty of money. Her father is well off--better off than people know--and would probably settle a considerable sum upon her; then think of the Courtleroys--there is a fair amount of wealth in that family, surely----" "Which they would be so very likely to give her if she married me," said her brother, with irony. "Moonshine, my dear. Do you think that Lady Alice would allow her daughter to marry your brother?--knowing what she does, and hating you as she does, would she like to be connected with you by marriage?"