The tale of the Desmond O'Rourke conversation convinced even the unwilling Dick that Major Campbell was Hugh the inventor, but he still refused to share Mollie's conviction that there was a romance connecting him with Aunt Mary. "You girls are so jolly sentimental," he said impatiently. "Why _should_ Aunt Mary want to go and get engaged to a chap old enough to be her father, or at any rate her uncle, just as I have arrived. I bet I play a better game of golf than he does, and even Bemister says my tennis has improved a lot this term." "_I_ agree with Mollie," said Jerry, trying to look romantic, "I thought so first go-off, as soon as he said 'Miss Gordon'; there's a look--" "If it's the look you think you've got on just now it's a fairly imbecile one," Dick interrupted scornfully. "Perhaps you are in love with Mollie!" Mollie, who was rather tired, was leaning back against her pillows, her bandaged foot lying on the bed and the other foot swinging over the side. Her short, blue-serge skirt was at its shortest and made no pretence at hiding her serviceable blue knickers, from which emerged a pair of useful girl-guidish legs, suitably clad in black merino stockings and lace-up shoes. Her bobbed hair was for the moment rough and tumbled, and she still held her flags spread out on either side of her. No one could have looked less romantic, and they all three had to laugh at Dick's suggestion. He cheered up slightly. "Anyhow--now perhaps we can find out a few things--what the blood was, and how rich the diamond-mine made them." "And if Grizzel made her fortune in jam," Mollie added, "and if Hugh ever invented an aeroplane." "He's in the R.A.F.," Jerry remarked, "we saw it on the card he gave us." This reminder cheered Dick up still more. If his favourite aunt had the bad taste to throw over a promising football nephew for anything so wishy-washy as a lover, it was consoling to know that the wisher-washer might include an aeroplane. "Perhaps he'll take us up one of these days if we behave nicely about Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle," he said hopefully; "that is, if there really is anything in Mollie's tosh. He looks an aged old party to be turning somersaults in the air, I must say."