Charteris winked in the most vulgar manner. "What'll you take on it? Do you think she don't know she has set you and me by the ears? If not, old Mother Jardine will soon enlighten her. And then--oh, my revered Hal, can you doubt what her first move will be? To reconcile us, my boy, as if we were two dirty little snivelling urchins in her village school at home! Will she make us shake hands? Oh, ain't it glorious!" He dropped into his chair, helpless with laughter, while Gerrard surveyed him with distaste. It was some consolation to feel that Bob could not possibly be properly in love, if he could thus contemplate the likelihood of the object of his affections making herself ridiculous. But as if he had read his friend's thoughts, Charteris sat up suddenly, and spoke with perfect gravity. "Mind you, Hal, all this don't signify that I forgive you in the least for coming between her and me. I'm willing to call a truce because falling out is horrid inconvenient, and looks silly. But your intrusive existence has turned love's young dream into a farce, and this suggestion of yours can only make things worse. I never bargained for being a sort of Siamese twin, but that's how it comes out. The unfortunate girl will never be able to think of one of us without the other. If she is dwelling affectionately on your modest merit, what you call, I believe, my swaggering dare-devilry will force itself into her mind, and if any of my encounters with tigers or dacoits should reach her ears, they will only recall your powers of discussing theology or reeling off poetry by the yard. Make no mistake. You intrude, sir; and I resent it." "And words can't express the depth of my resentment that you should have poked your nose into my affairs," returned Gerrard heartily. [1] Definite refusal. [2] Not at home, lit. the door is shut. CHAPTER II. HER SIDE OF THE CASE. "I feared so much that you might consider me intrusive," said Mrs Jardine. "On the contrary, I consider you most kind," replied Lady Cinnamond. She sat very erect, a beautiful woman still, with her dark eyes and white hair. Mrs Jardine was not an imaginative person, but the outlines of the Cinnamonds' family history had reached her, and her thoughts wandered involuntarily to the storming of Badajoz and the beautiful Spanish girl who had sought refuge in the British camp, and she found excuse for that infatuation on Sir Arthur Cinnamond's part which she had denounced bitterly when she first heard that "the new General's" wife was a foreigner. Not that she felt as yet quite at her ease with Lady Cinnamond. There was something that seemed to baffle her, a kind of regal willingness to hear all she had to say with courtesy, but with no promise to follow her advice.