He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her lips, and then abruptly her brother said: "I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!" She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless. "They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the consequences seem pretty inevitable." She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started in his chair. "What do you know?" he demanded. "Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir." "Then there _is_ something between them?" She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh. "Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of it!" His sister sat very still after he had left the room. VIII SIR REGINALD Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually serious expression. "Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he. "You won't tell me where you've been!" He was silent for a moment and then said confidentially: "We might as well say we've been somewhere together. I mean, if any one asks." "Thank you, I don't need to fib," said she. "I don't mean I need to. Only----" he seemed to find it difficult to explain. "I shall merely say I have been for a walk, and you need only say you have been for a ride--if you don't want to say where you have really been." "And if you don't want to mention that you were driving with Ned Cromarty," he retorted. "He only very kindly offered me a lift!" She looked quickly at him as she spoke and as quickly away again. The glint in her eye seemed to displease him. "You needn't always be so sharp with me, Cicely," he complained. "You shouldn't say stupid things." Both were silent for a space and then in a low mournful voice he said: "I wish I knew how to win your sympathy, Cicely. You don't absolutely hate me, do you?" "Of course I don't hate you. But the way to get a girl's sympathy is not always to keep asking for it." He looked displeased again. "I don't believe you know what I mean!" "I don't believe you do either." He grew tender. "_Your_ sympathy, Cicely, would make all the difference to my life!" "Now, Malcolm----" she began in a warning voice. "Oh, I am not asking you to love me again," he assured her quickly. "It is only sympathy I demand!" "But you mix them up so easily. It isn't safe to give you anything." "I won't again!" he assured her. "Well," she said, though not very sympathetically, "what do you want to be sympathised with about now?"