"About Cicely?" she asked in her frankly audacious way. He opened his eyes for a moment and then laughed. "You needn't guess again, Lilian," he admitted. "Funny little thing," she observed. "Funny?" he repeated, and his tone brought an almost imperceptible change of expression into his sister's eye. "Oh," she said as though throwing the subject aside, "she is nice and quite pretty, but very young, and not very sophisticated; is she? However, I should think she would be a great success as a man's girl. That low voice and those eyes of hers are very effective. Pass me the salt, Ned." Ned looked at her in silence, and then over her shoulder out through the square window set in the vast thickness of the wall, to the grey horizon line. "I guess you've recommended me to marry once or twice, Lilian," he observed. "Don't 'guess' please!" she laughed, "or I'll stick my bowie knife or gun or something into you! Yes, I've always advised you to marry--if you found the right kind of wife." She took some credit to herself for this disinterested advice, since, if he took it, the consequences would be decidedly disconcerting to herself; but she had never pointed out any specific lady yet, or made any conspicuous effort to find one for him. "Well----" he began, and then broke off. "You're not thinking of Cicely, are you?" she asked, still in the same bright light way, but with a quick searching look at him. "It seems a bit absurd. I don't imagine for an instant she'd look at me." "Wouldn't look----!" she began derisively, and then pulled herself up very sharply, and altered her tactics on the instant. "She might think you a little too old for her," she said in a tone of entire agreement with him. "And also that I've got one too few eyes, and in fact several other criticisms." His sister shrugged her shoulders. "A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is she?" Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh. "Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's somebody's something--Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course her mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the Cromartys. Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question." "Why?" "If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be a snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly enough!" "After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her great-mothers, even if she had any." She shrugged her shoulders again. "My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the blood in these cases." "Rot!" said he. "Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."