"What a touching sight!" said Lucy, laughing suddenly, as, by the dancing firelight, she caught sight of the two fair young figures in the mirror--their loosened hair falling all about their shoulders. "Come on with your confidences! Now is the time. At least so they say in books." "Unfortunately I have not got any confidences." "Nor have I--thank heaven!" She bent low over the glowing wood-fire. "What slavery love must be!" Evelyn watched her with interest, but Lucy's next words were somewhat disappointing. "Evelyn," she said, "how is it Mona has contrived to charm your father so? I need not tell you what I think about her, but, broadly speaking, she is not a man's woman, and I should not have fancied she was the sort of girl to fetch Sir Douglas at all." "I don't think it strange," said Evelyn languidly. "I have often thought about it. You see, she is very like what my mother must have been at her age, though not nearly so charming to mere acquaintances; and then just where the dear old Mater stops short, the real Mona begins. It must be such a surprise to Father!" "That is ingenious, certainly. How Mr Monteith admires your mother!" "Does he?" "I wonder what he would think of Mona!" "I can't guess." "Have you known him long?" "Father and Mother have known his father long." "Do you think he is honest?" "Which?" "The son, of course." "He never stole anything from me." "Don't be a goose! Do you think he means what he says?" Evelyn paused before replying. "You don't?" said Lucy quickly. "I was trying to remember anything he did say," Evelyn answered very deliberately. "The only remark I can remember addressed to myself was, 'Brute of a day, isn't it?' I think he meant that. He certainly looked as if he did." "Douglas," said Lady Munro, "would Colonel Monteith allow his son to marry Lucy Reynolds?" "Nonsense! what ideas you do take into your head!" "Because, if he would not, things have gone quite far enough. George said something to me about coming back to Cannes for a day or two. Of course that child is the attraction. If you think it will end in nothing, he must not come." "So that is what her vocation amounts to!" "My dear Douglas! what does she know of life? She is a child----" "Precisely, and her father is another. God bless my soul! Monteith's son must marry an heiress." Lady Munro did not pursue the subject; she had something else to talk of. She rose presently, and walked across the room. "Douglas," she said, stopping idly before the glass, "I wish you would give me your recipe for looking youthful. You will soon look younger than your wife." "Nonsense," he said gruffly, but he smiled. His wife did not often make pretty speeches now-a-days. As it happened she was looking particularly young that night, too. Perhaps that fact had struck her, and had suggested the remark. For half an hour they chatted together, as they might have done in the old, old days, and then----