“You needn’t rub it in, Cristiane,” he said crossly. “I know you don’t care a button whether you see me alone or not.” He was very young-looking for his twenty-eight years; very brown and big as he stood on the grass in his shooting-clothes. But he had not been born yesterday for all his debonair face; there was very little Mr. Cylmer had not done in this world; very little that his quick eye did not see through. But all his worldly wisdom was wont to desert him when he found himself alone with Cristiane. He was her humble slave, and it never occurred to him that she would have valued him much more if she had known that Miles Cylmer, who was such an every-day sort of person to her, could have thrown his handkerchief to half the fine ladies in London, and had it snapped up on the second; or that every woman he knew adored him, from duchess to dairymaids. To Cristiane le Marchant he was plain Miles Cylmer, who had been in and out of Marchant’s Hold all his life, and was to be regarded as a convenient or inconvenient elder brother, as things might happen. “Come on,” she commanded practically, “I have to go to the house to meet them.” “Is your father coming with them?” He stood looking down at her, six feet and to spare, his keen hazel eyes full of annoyance, and his face quite grave. Had he not given up a whole day’s shooting to be near Cristiane le Marchant? And now, instead of a tête-à-tête with her, there would be two women to be disposed of; two strangers to spoil it. “But your father’s coming with them,” he repeated, beginning to walk slowly--very slowly--toward the house. “No, he isn’t!” Cristiane stopped short. “That’s what’s so funny about these visitors. Father has sent them here, and he doesn’t know how long he’ll be away, and he wrote me such a funny note.” And she pulled a letter out of her pocket. “‘Write to me and tell me exactly what you think of Mrs. Trelane, if you like her or not,’ she read. ‘But try and make friends with her little daughter, for she needs a friend, and take time before you write. Only write me your candid opinion.’ There, what do you think of it? Why is this Mrs. Trelane so important, that I am to send daddy my ‘candid opinion.’ I can’t see any sense in it.” “By George, I can, then!” was on the tip of Mr. Cylmer’s tongue, but he caught back the words in time. There could be only one meaning to the letter; Sir Gaspard must be thinking of marrying again. Somehow Cylmer was unreasonably angry. From his earliest boyhood he had been wont to gaze at the portrait of Cristiane’s mother, that hung in Sir Gaspard’s room, with a wondering awe that any one could ever have been so beautiful; it made him angry now in his manhood that the husband she had loved should have dared to forget her. “No, I can’t see any sense,” he said lamely; “only be sure you tell your father outright if you don’t like this Trelane woman. Otherwise he might ask her to stay on, or something----”