"What is she afraid of?" growled Max.

"You know best." Nick glanced up again with sudden keenness. "Don't harry the child, Wyndham!" he said, a half-whimsical note of pleading in his voice. "If you know you're going to win through, you can afford to let her have the honours of war. There's nothing softens a woman more."

"I don't mean to harry her." Max turned squarely round upon him. "But neither have I the smallest intention of fetching and carrying for her till she either kicks me or pats me on the head. I shouldn't appreciate either, and it's a method I don't believe in."

"There I am with you," said Nick. "But for Heaven's sake, man, be patient! It's no joke, I a.s.sure you, if the one woman takes it into her head that you are nothing short of a devouring monster. She will fly to the ends of the earth to escape you sooner than stay to hear reason."

Max smiled in his one-sided fashion. "Has that been your experience?"

Nick nodded. There was a reminiscent glitter in his eyes. "My courtship represented two years' hard labour. It nearly killed me. However, we've made up for it since."

"I don't propose to spend two years over mine," said Max.

Nick's eyes flashed upwards, meeting those of the younger man with something of the effect of a collision. His body however remained quite pa.s.sive, and his voice even sounded as if it had a laugh in it as he made response.

"I think you're a decent chap," he said, "and I think you might make her happy; but I'm d.a.m.ned if she shall marry any man--good, bad, or indifferent--before she's ready."

"You also think you could prevent such a catastrophe?" suggested Max cynically.

Nick grinned with baffling amiability. "No, I don't think. I know. Quite a small spoke is enough to stop a wheel--even a mighty big wheel--if it's going too fast."

And again, more than half against his will, Max laughed. "You make a very efficient chaperon," he said.

"It's my speciality just now," said Nick.

He closed his eyes again peaceably, and gave himself up to his cigar.

Max, his rough red brows drawn together, leaned back against the mantelpiece and smoked his pipe, staring at the opposite wall. There was no strain in the silence between them. Both were preoccupied.

Suddenly through the open window there rippled in the fairy notes of a mandolin, and almost at once a voice of most alluring sweetness began to sing:

"O, wert thou in the cauld blast, On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee.

Or did misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a', to share it a'."

"Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, The desert were a paradise, If thou wert there, if thou wert there.

Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen."

As the song died out into the August night, Nick rose. "That girl's a siren," he said. "Come along! We're wasting our time in here."

Max stooped laconically to knock the ashes from his pipe. His face as he stood up again was quite expressionless. "You lead the way," he said.

"Are you going to leave your cigar behind? I suppose cigarettes are allowed?"

"I should think so, as the lady smokes them herself." Nick opened the door with the words, but paused a moment looking back at his companion quizzically. "Good luck to you, old chap!" he said.

Max's hand came out of his pocket with a jerk. He still had it bandaged, but he managed to grip hard with it nevertheless. But he did not utter a word.

They pa.s.sed into the drawing-room with the lazy, tolerant air of men expecting to be amused; and Olga, with all her keenness, was very far from suspecting aught of what had just pa.s.sed between them.

She and Violet were both near the open window, the latter with her instrument lying on her knee, its crimson ribbons streaming to the floor. She herself was very simply attired in white. The vivid beauty of her outlined against the darkness of the open French window was such as to be almost startling. She smiled a sparkling welcome.

"Dr. Wyndham, I've decided to call you Max; not because I like it,--I think it's hideous,--but because it's less trouble. I thought it as well to explain at the outset, so that there should be no misunderstanding."

"That is very gracious of you," said Max.

"You may regard it exactly as you please," she said majestically, "so long as you come when you're called. Allegretto, why do you move? I like you sitting there."

"I promised to go and say good-night to the boys," said Olga, who had sprung up somewhat precipitately at Max's approach. "Sit on the sofa, Nick, and keep a corner for me! I'm coming back."

She was gone with the words, a vanishing grey vision, the quick closing of the door shutting her from sight.

Violet leaned back in her chair, and dared the full scrutiny of Max's eyes.

"What a disturber of the peace you are!" she said. "What did you want to come here for before you had finished your smoke?"

"That was your doing," said Nick. "You literally dragged us. .h.i.ther. I'm inclined to think it was you who disturbed the peace."

"I?" She turned upon him. "Captain Ratcliffe--"

"Pray call me Nick!" he interposed. "It will save such a vast amount of trouble as well as keep you in the fashion."

She laughed. "You're much funnier than Max because you don't try to be.

What do you mean by saying that I dragged you here? Was it that silly old song?"

"In part," said Nick cautiously.

"And the other part?"

"I won't put that into words. It would sound fulsome."

"Oh, please don't!" she said lightly. "And you, Max, what did you come for?"

He seated himself in the chair which Olga had vacated. "I thought it was time someone came to look after you," he said.

"How inane! You don't pretend to be musical, I hope?"

He leaned back, directly facing her. "No," he said. "I don't pretend."

"Never?" she said.

He smiled in his own enigmatical fashion. "That is the sort of question I never answer."

She nodded gaily. "I knew you wouldn't. Why do you look at me like that?

I feel as if I were being dissected. I don't wonder that Olga runs away when she sees you coming. I shall myself in a minute."

He laughed. "Surely you are accustomed to being looked at!"

"With reverence," she supplemented, "not criticism! You have the eye of a calculating apothecary. I believe you regard everybody you meet in the light of a possible patient."