"Off and on with the old love!" It kept whispering itself in my ear till I hardly knew what I was doing. _Could_ it be that she would--but, oh, dash it, _no_! I knew she wouldn't! And yet another chap might come along and she might find she would rather be engaged to _him_! Oh, but I was sure _she_ was not so variable as that. Still a vague fear kept recurring; a miserable, tiny, pricking doubt--the crumpled what's-its-name in the bed of down, you know--that sort of thing! What the deuce was the best thing to do? "Pardon, sir," came in Jenkins' voice, and in the glass I saw his head piking anxiously over my shoulder; "but _I_ think with them changeable kind, the best thing to try for is a sudden, firm knot!" "Eh?" I said, staring. And then I whirled upon him, seizing both his hands. "By Jove, Jenkins!" I exclaimed admiringly. "What a perfectly out-and-out corking idea--a regular ripper, you know! How devilish clever of you, dash it!" "Certainly, sir!" Jenkins batted a little--always does when I notice these little things--so modest, don't you know. But I had the idea now, and I gripped it tight along with my monocle, as, ten minutes later, I sauntered down the stairs. I would speak to her father at once! CHAPTER XXIV I SPEAK TO HER FATHER "So glad to see you here, my boy," the judge was saying. And his little round face beamed at me across the library table. I had encountered him in the hall just as I had descended to rejoin the girls in the living-room. Forthwith, he elbowed me into the library. "Know from Jack how glad you always are to escape girls," he remarked cheerily as he produced cigars. "Don't blame you at all--in fact, do you know it refreshes me to find--" Don't know what dashed thing it refreshed him to find, for I never caught it. For just then through the doorway there floated, from across the hall, a bar of music--the laugh of the dearest girl in the world! I strained for another bar. "Hah!" ejaculated the judge, pausing with questioning uplift of cigar. "The silly cackle of those girls--it disturbs you. Yes, it does--I can see it--you _look_ disturbed." And, dash it, he insisted upon closing the door. "You mustn't let _them_ bother you while you are here," he urged pleasantly; "you must just go ahead and do the thing you _want_ to do." By Jove, there seemed little opportunity for it! "Thanks awfully," I murmured feebly. The judge proceeded genially: "Of course we all understand that you just came up to Wolhurst to please Jack." Then his face clouded. "H'm! Sorry to learn that he came home with another--" his eyes rolled through a circle--"er--is not feeling just fit. It's too bad, for I wanted some one to take you over the neighborhood--interesting landmarks, you know, reminiscent of Major Andre and Washington Irving."