“Sorry you think so, but a man cannot give what he does not possess. You had better stay and keep your sister-in-law company for a little while. I have work to do and am going straight home!” “All right! I’ll walk with you a little way,” persisted Ralph, and the two young men left the house together. As soon as they found themselves in the street, Captain Pullen attacked his cousin, eagerly. “I say, Pennell, what is the exact direction of the Red House?” “Why do you want to know?” enquired his companion. “Because I feel that I owe the Baroness a visit. I acknowledge that I was wrong not to write and make my apologies, but you must know what it is--with a deuce of a lot of women to look after, and the whole gang crying their eyes out, and everything thrown on my shoulders, coffin, funeral, taking them over from Heyst to England, and all--it was enough to drive everything else out of a man’s head. You must acknowledge that.” “You owe no excuses to me, Pullen, neither do I quite believe in them. You have had plenty of time since to remedy your negligence, even if you did forget to be courteous at the moment!” “I know that, and you’re quite right about the other thing. I had more reasons than one for letting the matter drop. You are a man and I can tell you with impunity what would set the women tearing my eyes out. I _did_ flirt a bit with Harriet Brandt, perhaps more than was quite prudent in the circumstances--” “You mean the circumstance of your engagement to Miss Leyton?” “Yes and No! If I had been free, it would have been all the same--perhaps worse, for I should not have had a loophole of escape. For you see Miss Brandt is not the sort of girl that any man could marry.” “Why not?” demanded Pennell with some asperity. “Oh! because--well! you should hear old Phillips talk of her and her parents. They were the most awful people, and she has black blood in her, her mother was a half-caste, so you see it would be impossible for any man in my position to think of marrying her! One might get a piebald son and heir! Ha! ha! ha! But putting all that aside, she is one of the demndest fascinating little women I ever came across--you would say so too, if you had seen as much of her as I did--I can’t tell you what it is exactly, but she has a drawing way about her, that pulls a fellow into the net before he knows what he is about. And her voice, by Jove!--have you heard her sing?” “I have, but that has nothing to do that I can see with the subject under discussion. You, an engaged man, who had no more right to philander with a girl, than if you had been married, appear to me to have followed this young lady about and paid her attentions, which were, to say the least of them, compromising, never announcing the fact, meanwhile, that you were bound to Miss Leyton. After which, you left her, without a word of explanation, to think what she chose of your conduct. And now you wish to see her again, in order to apologise. Am I right?”