“Oh, you know about that, do you? Was it Lady Dundrannan who told you?” He laughed. “Oh, no! It was Miss Fleming. And she didn’t tell me anything about who it was—only just that he’d had a lucky escape from a girl quite unworthy of him. She said I must remember the affair—it was all over London just before the war. But as I was in the works at Dundee at the time, and never read anything in the papers except racing and football, I somehow missed it; and when I asked Nina about it, she shut me up—told me not to talk scandal.” “But I thought that she was fitting you for polite society!” “That’s good—jolly good, Captain Rillington!” he was kind enough to say. “I shall tell Nina that; it’ll amuse her.” He seemed disposed to take me for a Mentor—to think that I might supplement the social education which his cousin proposed to give him; that I might do the male, the club side, while she looked after the drawing-room department—or deportment. On the other hand, he instructed me rather freely on business, until he happened to gather—from Sir Paget—that in the piping times of peace I held a fairly good position in Ezekiel Coldston & Co., Ltd.; after which he treated me, if not with a greater, yet with a more comprehensive, respect. “That’s a big concern,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Of course you and we don’t come into competition at all—quite separate fields, aren’t they?” “Oh, quite,” said I, tacitly thanking heaven for the fact. As I have said, an engaging young man, and interesting. I wondered what he and life would make of one another, when they became better acquainted. Meanwhile our intimacy increased apace.