"Oh, of course, I know. He will keep his promise right enough," he said seriously. Then, suddenly recollecting himself: "I say, Geoff, I didn't mean to be personal. If your cousin goes and dies without children, we don't expect you to alter, and be fickle and false and all the rest of it, just because you become Earl of Winborough, eh?" Evarne's lips parted, and, turning her head, she gazed at Geoff with eyes filled with utter amazement and incredulity. That young man threw down his brushes. "Look here," he said lightly, "it's a quarter to one. I think we had better stop work and have lunch." "Right you are," cried Pallister the lazy. "Come along, Jackie, my boy; we had better take plenty of time to strengthen ourselves for this afternoon. We have both got to make a good impression, you know." Jack partly understood Geoff's evident anxiety to get them gone. He promptly pulled off his painting overall and put on his coat. Pallister, with no such change of costume to effect, was already awaiting him, and in a very few minutes they were both out of the place. Already Geoff had freed Evarne from her golden fetters. They fastened by means of snaps, and it needed the use of both hands to open them. The long connecting chain was quite unbreakable, though charmingly light and delicate in workmanship. He occupied the time while his friends were dressing in subjecting it to a series of vigorous little tugs, as if to test its strength; but directly the studio door had closed, he cast it aside and turned to Evarne. "Surely I didn't understand rightly?" she queried, in tones of ill-suppressed anxiety. "I thought Mr. Pallister seemed to say that Lord Winborough was not only your cousin, but that you were his heir?" Geoff acknowledged this to be verily the truth. "I'm sure I don't know why I didn't mention it long ago," he continued apologetically. "It's very silly of me to appear to have made any sort of a mystery about it, for naturally it's no secret. It can't be exactly termed a misfortune in itself, can it, while of course it does not make the slightest little bit of difference in our feelings for one another?" "I am not so sure," rejoined Evarne sadly.