"One day you may know all, Hector--meantime, don't worry me," replied Roland, with the hair brushes suspended in action above his thick head of dark brown hair, while Logan smoked and talked. His toilet table bespoke taste and that wealth which he no longer possessed, with its ivory-handled brushes having on them the Ruthven arms; his dressing-case of silver-gilt, with gold-topped essence bottles in nests of blue velvet; rings, jewelled studs, and sleeve-links, lay there scattered about, with pipe heads of rare fashion and costly material. "You are not using that girl well, Roland--you know what I mean; before you went on leave you were like her shadow, and now----" "I can't get over my scruples about--about----" "What, in the name of heaven?" "Well, about making up to a girl who has a fortune--a very handsome income, at all events--when I am so out at the elbows." "Out at the elbows--are you mad?" "The thing would look ill--yet I could make a little running with her," said Roland, with a dreary attempt to be lively. "I should think so. Ruthven of Ardgowrie out at the elbows--why, man alive, what the devil has come to you? You could marry Miss Darnel without exciting anybody but her special admirers. There is no 'establishment' to break up; no fair denizen of such a villa as is proverbial at St. John's Wood to tear her dyed locks, and demand a monetary kind of 'loot'--so I say again, what the deuce has come to you?" asked Logan, with genuine surprise. "That which I cannot tell." "Even to me?" asked the other reproachfully. "Even to you, old fellow, just yet." "This passes my comprehension." "The misfortune that has befallen me passes mine." "She is a delightful girl, Roland," said Logan, after a pause, during which he had been reflectively preparing another cigar; "she never misses fire in the way of a repartee or a brilliant rejoinder." "In that I agree with you," replied Roland, quietly. "How cold you are." "I am far from feeling so, any way," said Roland, with a sigh. "Can't make you out, by Jove! In the Chateau de St. Eustache, unless I am very much mistaken, you have gone in for some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the inconstant moon played no inconsiderable part." "Flirtation, Logan? I never could flirt with Aurelia Darnell." "Indeed!" said the other incredulously; "why?" "Because I love her too sincerely." "Yet you never go near that house where you have often acted almost as host to the whole garrison, and where that horrible Yankee Colonel has the field all to himself." "Oh! he is a cousin of some sort--but what the devil is he to me?" "Well--he is a good shot I hear." "A shot--d--n him!" said Ronald, with considerable irritation of manner; "I would think very little of parading him on the other side of the Canadian frontier." "I don't doubt that, Ronald, old man; but he has fought several duels, and successfully I hear."