"I should have done, Austin, as I always shall do, whatever you ask me to do. I'm glad you didn't ask me--very glad--for the love a woman gives a man died within me, you know." He took her hand and kissed it. "My dear," said he, "you are the truest friend that ever man had." There was a short pause. Austin looked out of the window and Katherine wiped away some moisture in her eyes. This scene of sentimentality was not at all what she had come for. Soon she rose with a determined air and joined Austin by the window. "It was as a true friend that I wanted to speak to you to-day. To warn you." "About what?" "About Dick. Austin, he's madly in love with Viviette too." Austin stared at her for a moment incredulously. "Dick in love--in love with Viviette?" Then he broke into a peal of laughter. "My _dear_ Katherine! Why, it's absurd! It's preposterous! It's too funny." "But seriously, Austin." "But seriously," he said, with laughing eyes, "such an idea has never penetrated into old Dick's wooden skull. You dear women are always making up romance. He and Viviette are on the same old fairy and great brown bear terms that they have been ever since they first met. She makes him dance on his hind legs--he wants to hug her--she hits him over the nose--and he growls." "I warn you," said Katherine. "Great brown bears in love are dangerous." "But he isn't in love," he argued light-heartedly. "If he were he would want to stay with Viviette. But he's eating his heart out, apparently, to leave us all and go and plough fields and herd cattle abroad. The life he lives here, my good mother's somewhat arbitrary ways, and one thing and another have at last got on his nerves. I wonder now how the dear old chap has stood it so long. That's what is wrong with him, not blighted affection." "I can only tell you what I know," said Katherine. "If you won't believe me, it's not my fault. Keep your eyes open and you will see." "And you keep your eyes open to-morrow morning and _you_ will see," he said, with his bright self-confidence. So Katherine sighed at the obtuseness and inconvincibility of man and went to read the leader in _The Daily Telegraph_ to Mrs. Ware. Austin, with a smile on his lips, wandered out into the sunshine in search of Viviette. Before they parted, however, Katherine turned by the door. "Are you coming to the armoury to hear Dick's lecture?" "Of course," said Austin gaily. "The dear old chap loves an audience." CHAPTER IV THE FAMOUS DUELLING PISTOLS