Namely, that the wealthy and ingenuous and inexperienced Million really had fallen in love with that handsome ne'er-do-weel, Mr. James Burke. "Have you?" I persisted. "Have you?" Million gave a little admitting sigh. She sat there on the edge of the dimity bed, and watched me shake out that detested evening frock in which she had motored down. She has got it so crumpled that I shall make it the excuse never to let her wear it again. "The Honourable Mr. Burke," said Million, with a far-away look in her eyes, "is about the handsomest gentleman that I have ever seen." "I daresay," I said quite severely. "Certainly there is no denying the Honourable Jim's good looks. Part of his stock-in-trade! But you know, Miss Million"--here I brought out the eternal copy-book maxim--"Handsome is as handsome does!" Hereupon Million voiced the sentiment that I had always cherished myself concerning that old proverb. "It may be true. But then, it always seems to me, somehow, as if it was neither here nor there!" I didn't know what to say. It seemed so very evident that Million had set her innocent and affectionate heart on a young man who was good-looking enough in his Celtic, sooty-haired, corn-cockle, blue-eyed way, but who really had nothing else to recommend him. Everything to be said against him, in fact. Insincere, unscrupulous, cynical, unreliable; everything that's bad, bad, BAD! "You can't say he isn't a gentleman, now," put in Million again, with a defiant shake of her little dark head. "That you can't say." "Well, I don't know. It depends," I said, in a very sermonising voice. "It all depends upon what you call 'a gentleman.'" "No, it doesn't," contradicted Miss Million unexpectedly. "You know yourself it doesn't depend upon 'what you call' anything. Either he is, or he isn't. That Auntie of yours would ha' told you that. And stuck-up and stand-offish and a perfect terror as she was, she'd have been the first to admit that the Honourable Mr. Burke was one of her own sort!" I couldn't help smiling a little. Million had hit it. This would have been exactly Aunt Anastasia's attitude! "And don't you remember what my great wish always was? Whenever there was a new moon, or anything," Million reminded me, "you used to want money and nice clothes. But there was something I wanted--quite different. I wanted to marry a gentleman. I--I still want it!" Her underlip quivered as she gazed out of the lattice-window at the peaceful bare Sussex landscape. Her grey eyes were full of tears and of dreams. As for me, I felt half-sorrowful for her, half-furious with the Hon. Jim; the person whom nobody but a perfect innocent, like Million, would dream of liking or taking seriously!... Reprobate! He ought to be horsewhipped!