"No; I won't. After all a soldier couldn't really funk things, because he's got everything to back him up. But you haven't. And when I think of you sitting here all by yourself, and expecting that great big rich Mr. Brokenshire and Ethel, and all of them, to come to your terms--" To get away from a view of my situation that both consoled and embarrassed me, I said: "Thank you, Lady Cecilia, very, very much; but it isn't what you meant to say when you began, is it?" With some confusion she admitted that it wasn't. "Only," she went on, "that isn't worth while now." A hint in her tone impelled me to insist. "It may be. You don't know. Please tell me what it was." "But what's the use? It was only something Ethel Rossiter said--and she was wrong." "What makes you so sure she was wrong?" "Because I am. I can see." She added, reluctantly, "Ethel thought there was some one--some one besides Hugh--" "And what if there was?" Though startled by the challenge, she stood her ground. "I don't believe in people making each other any more unhappy than they can help, do you?" She had a habit of screwing up her small gray-green eyes into two glimmering little slits of light, with an effect of shyness showing through amusement and _diablerie_. "We're both girls, aren't we? I'm twenty, and you can't be much older. And so I thought--that is, I thought at first--that if you had any one else in mind, there'd be no use in our making each other miserable--but I see you haven't; and so--" "And so," I laughed, nervously, "the race must be to the swift and the battle to the strong. Is that it?" "N-no; not exactly. What I was going to say is that since--since there's nobody but Hugh--you won't be offended with me, will you?--I won't step in--" It was my turn to be enthusiastic. "But that's what I call sporting!" "Oh no, it isn't. I haven't seen Hugh for two or three years, and whatever little thing there was--" I strained forward across my desk. I know my eyes must have been enormous. "But was there--was there ever--anything?" "Oh no; not at all. He--he never noticed me. I was only in the school-room, and he was a grown-up young man. If his father and mine hadn't been great friends--and got plans into their heads--Laura and Janet used to poke fun at me about it. And then we rode together and played tennis and golf, and so--but it was all--just nothing. You know how silly a girl of seventeen can be. It was nonsense. I only want you to know, in case he ever says anything about it--but then he never will--men see so little--I only want you to know that that's the way I feel about it--and that I didn't come over here to-- I don't say that if in your case there had been any one else--but I see there isn't--Ethel Rossiter is wrong--and so if I can do anything for Hugh and yourself with the Brokenshires. I--I want you to make use of me."