Spruce saw that he had overshot the mark and retreated dexterously. "I have already been honest, as I told you that I was not a millionaire but only well off. Anyhow, I am a better husband for Zara so far as money is concerned than you or that bounder." "But hang it, man, you can't love her. You've only known her a week." "I never said that I did love her, or could possibly come to love her. Still, Zara is handsome and clever, so why shouldn't I make her my comrade-wife, since you suggested the same kind of half-baked alliance with yourself." "Look here, Spruce," stated the other very seriously, and irritated by the nimble wit of his schoolfellow, "you have proved yourself to be a decent sort by offering to help me. For that offer I thank you, and because of it I am willing that we should be friends. But if you make love to Zara we are sure to quarrel." "Aren't you rather a dog-in-the-manger, Hench?" "No. I admire the girl." "She wants love, which you evidently can't give her," retorted Spruce in an emphatic manner. "Now, if I can love her----" "You said that she wasn't your sort." "She isn't. Still, she is handsome, and one might pick up a worse wife." "But not a worse mother-in-law. So far as I am concerned it doesn't matter, as I have neither kith nor kin to my knowledge, and, moreover, I am a vagabond upon the face of the earth. But with your family connections and position and money, the marriage would not be a success, seeing that it entails your taking Madame Alpenny to the West End. There she would scarcely do you credit." Spruce rocked with laughter, and wondered what Hench would say if he knew the true position of affairs which had been so carefully withheld from him. "I give in, old fellow," he said, wiping his eyes with a mauve silk handkerchief and wafting a perfume about the room. "I was only codding you. I don't want to marry the girl. But Bracken does." "And so do I," rejoined Hench tartly. "H'm! I'm not so sure of that. Yours is a cold-blooded wooing. The girl asks you for the bread of love and you give her the stone of admiration." "She doesn't ask me for love," said the tall young man with a sigh. "I am not so blind but what I can see that she loves Bracken." "Then why don't you sheer off?" "I don't like any man to get the better of me." "There speaks the buccaneer, the cave-man, the prehistoric grabber. Lord! what a weird state of things, and how simple you are, Hench, to place all your cards on the table. I can teach you a thing or two." "I am quite sure you can," said Hench dryly, and disliking the wit of this effeminate little creature, which was so extremely keen; "but I go my own way, thank you, and dree my own weird. It is probable that I will ask Madame Alpenny if I can marry Zara, and if Zara is agreeable----" "Which by your own showing she won't be," put in Spruce parenthetically. "----I'll marry her. If not, I'll go away and let Bracken make her his wife."