"No, sir, you do not," she laughed softly, because the other two were coming back on to the lawn. "I wonder that you have--I have half a mind to say the impudence--to ask such a thing. You have confessed your fickleness in an almost shameless way; and now you ask me to help you with the other girl! No, my lord: if I know anything of Brenda van Huysman's nature, there is no one who can help you except yourself. Of course she might----" "Do you really think she might--I mean in that way?" "Who am I that I should know the secrets of another woman's soul?" she replied, with unhesitating prevarication. "There she is. Go and ask her, and take my best wishes with you. Now I am going to talk to _my_ affinity for a few minutes." "So it was Merrill, after all!" he said to himself, as they joined the others. "Well, I'm glad. He's a splendid fellow; and she--of course, she's worth the love of the best man on earth--and I'm afraid that's not--anyhow, I'll have Miss Brenda's opinion on the subject before I go home to-night." It now need hardly be added that the said opinion was not only entirely satisfactory, but also very sweetly expressed. CHAPTER XIII OVER THE TEA AND THE TOAST The next morning there were, at least, three eventful breakfasts "partaken of," as it was once the fashion to say; one at "The Wilderness," one at the Savoy, and one at the Kyneston town house in Prince's Gate. When Professor Marmion came down he was a little late, for he had done a long night's work, finishing his lecture-notes to his own satisfaction, or, at least, as nearly as he could get there. Like all good workers, he was never quite satisfied with what he did. When the maid had closed the door of the breakfast-room, he looked across the table at his daughter with a twinkle in his eyes, and said: "Niti, before Lord Leighton left last night he had a talk with me, and you were partly the subject of it." "And who might have been the other part of the subject, Dad?" she asked, with excellently simulated composure. "That, Niti," he replied slowly, "I expect you know quite as well as I do. I am inclined to consider myself the victim of something very like a conspiracy." "I think you are quite right, Dad," she replied, with perfect calmness. "But the chief conspirators were the Fates themselves. We others only did as we had to do. When you have solved that problem of N to the fourth, I think you will see that we could really have done nothing else, because, if you once crossed the border-line--the horizon which Professor Cayley spoke of, I mean--you ought to be on speaking terms with them." Before he replied to this somewhat searching remark, the man who _had_ crossed the horizon emptied his coffee cup, and set it down in the saucer with a perceptible rattle. Then he said more slowly than before: