Jack Meredith winced. He had seen a difference in his father, and Lady Cantourne was corroborating it. “The quarrel was not mine,” he said. “I admit that I ought to have known him better. I ought to have spoken to him before asking Millicent. It was a mistake.” Lady Cantourne looked up suddenly. “What was a mistake?” “Not asking his--opinion first.” She turned to the table where his letter lay, and fingered the paper pensively. “I thought, perhaps, that you had found that the other was a mistake--the engagement.” “No,” he answered. Lady Cantourne's face betrayed nothing. There was no sigh, of relief or disappointment. She merely looked at the clock. “Millicent will be in presently,” she said; “she is out riding.” She did not think it necessary to add that her niece was riding with a very youthful officer in the Guards. Lady Cantourne never made mischief from a sense of duty, or any mistaken motive of that sort. Some people argue that there is very little that is worth keeping secret; to which one may reply that there is still less worth disclosing. They talked of other things--of his life in Africa, of his success with the Simiacine, of which discovery the newspapers were not yet weary--until the bell was heard in the basement, and thereafter Millicent's voice in the hall. Lady Cantourne rose deliberately and went downstairs to tell her niece that he was in the drawing-room, leaving him there, waiting, alone. Presently the door opened and Millicent hurried in. She threw her gloves and whip--anywhere--on the floor, and ran to him. “Oh, Jack!” she cried. It was very prettily done. In its way it was a poem. But while his arms were still round her she looked towards the window, wondering whether he had seen her ride up to the door accompanied by the very youthful officer in the Guards. “And, Jack--do you know,” she went on, “all the newspapers have been full of you. You are quite a celebrity. And are you really as rich as they say?” Jack Meredith was conscious of a very slight check--it was not exactly a jar. His feeling was that rather of a man who thinks that he is swimming in deep water, and finds suddenly that he can touch the bottom. “I think I can safely say that I am not,” he answered. And it was from that eminently practical point that they departed into the future--arranging that same, and filling up its blanks with all the wisdom of lovers and the rest of us. Lady Cantourne left them there for nearly an hour, in which space of time she probably reflected they could build up as rosy a future as was good for them to contemplate. Then she returned to the drawing-room, followed by a full-sized footman bearing tea.