"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all about it. When she's twenty-four,--only twenty-four,--she'll have ten thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that's beastly." "Nobody can say that of me. Circumstanced as I am, I want something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,--quite as much as I want,--quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells me that if I'll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There's some fellow in England has just touched her heart,--just touched it, you know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome fellows without conduct and without courage." "I've known lots of 'em," said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him in my life, but that's what Sir Magnus says. He has done something awfully disreputable. I don't quite understand what it is, but it's something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. Nobody knows the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "Nobody does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that conversation was brought to an end. One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said. "Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I'm never in better company." "So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn't be all alone, would you?" "Not if you were with me." "That's what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the world at large. Mayn't they?" "I don't understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same sort of thing." "Why shouldn't he?" "Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it. Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?" "I don't understand the joke." "She had been told she couldn't break an egg in an empty stocking. Then she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains. I don't know what made me tell you that story." "It's a very good story. I'll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night. She believes everything." "And everybody? Then she's a happy woman." "I wish you'd believe everybody." "So I do;--nearly everybody. There are some inveterate liars whom nobody can believe." "I hope I am not regarded as one."