The look on the face of the elder and less reputable brother seemed pretty clearly to show that this desire was not shared. But duty had to be done, and the Prince seated himself doggedly on the high fender, his back to the fire.

"Tell me," he said, "what you know about this chap Harper."

Somehow, Klond.y.k.e hardly felt inclined. For one thing, the slow but sure growth of the Foreign Office manner, which he was able to detect in his younger brother every time he returned from his wanderings, always seemed to rattle him a bit. Of course Otto was a first-rate chap according to his lights; still, Klond.y.k.e was the elder, and if questions must be asked he did not feel bound to answer them.

A mild but concentrated gaze conveyed as much.

"Ted Ambrose brought him here," said the Prince, with a nice feeling for these nuances. "A good chap, I dare say ... quite a good chap ...

but..."

The mild gaze was still concentrated, but if possible more limpid.

"... but somehow a little ... Mother thinks so, anyway."

"Oh, yes, I dare say," said Klond.y.k.e, with a casualness that rather annoyed the Prince.

"Fact is ... I might as well tell you..." The tone of the Prince implied nothing less than a taking of the bull by the horns. "We all think Mary is inclined to ... to..."

With nice deliberation, Klond.y.k.e laid "The Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith" on the hearthrug.

"Mother thinks," said the Prince plaintively, after a pause, "it would be better if he didn't come to the house so much."

Klond.y.k.e frowned heavily and tapped his pipe on a fire-dog.

"How long's he been coming here?" he asked.

"Some little time now."

Klond.y.k.e still frowned.

"Mother thinks," said the plaintive Prince, "that Mary sees far too much of him. And I rather agree with her."

"Why?" asked Klond.y.k.e stolidly.

"Why?" repeated his younger brother, looking at him with wary amazement. "Well, to start with, he ain't a gentleman."

Klond.y.k.e tapped his pipe again.

"I don't mind telling you," said the Prince, "we all think she is making a perfect idiot of herself."

"What's Ted Ambrose think?"

"I've not asked him, but I believe mother has mentioned the matter."

"What did he say?"

"She thought he seemed a good deal worried."

Klond.y.k.e's frown had a.s.sumed terrific dimensions.

"She's old enough to take care of herself, anyway," he said, beginning abruptly to refill a foul briar from a small tin box that he unexpectedly evolved from the pocket of his trousers.

"That's hardly the point, is it?" said the Prince, with a deference he didn't feel.

"What is the point?" asked Klond.y.k.e, striking a wooden match on the sole of his shoe.

"Mother has mentioned the matter to Uncle George, and he thinks the chap ought not to come here."

"Oh, that's rot," said Klond.y.k.e coolly. "That's like the old fool."

"I'm afraid I agree ... with Uncle George, I mean ... and so does Silvia."

"What's Ted Ambrose think about it? He generally knows the lie of a country."

"He'd give no opinion to mother. But he was certainly worried."

Klond.y.k.e resumed his frown. He felt rather at sea. He was, in spite of birth and training, a man of primal instincts; he looked at things in an elemental way. Either a man was a good chap or he was not. If he was a good chap, no matter where he may have started from in the race of life, he was fitted by nature to marry his sister. If he was not a good chap, no matter what else he was or might be, he didn't count anyway.

"You see"--the plaintive voice of the Prince broke in upon Klond.y.k.e's unsubtle a.n.a.lysis of the situation--"no one knows anything about him.

Ambrose sprang him on us from nowhere, as you might say. Of course, he's a man with a sort of reputation ... in his own line ... but he's not one of us ... and it wouldn't have so much mattered if he had been a gentleman."

"There I don't altogether agree," said Klond.y.k.e with conviction, but without vehemence. "I always think with Ted Ambrose on that point.

Gentlemen are not made. They are born, like poets and cricketers."

"That's rot," said the Prince, with a sudden deepening of his tone of courtesy which made it seem excessive. "You are mixing, I think--aren't you--two entirely different things?"

"No, I don't think so," said Klond.y.k.e. "Harper is not a chap who would ever go back on a pal, and that's all that matters."

The Prince suddenly became so deeply angry that he decided to go to bed at once, and accordingly did so.

XVI

For a number of people there followed anxious days. Mary's friends made no secret of their belief that she was losing her head. They were much troubled. She was a universal favorite, one of those charming people who seem to have an almost poetic faculty of common sense. But she was thought to be far too wise ever to be carried away by anything.

The Pridmores, at heart, were conventional. They were abreast of the times, were lively and intelligent, and could be at ease in Bohemia, but up till now Bohemia had known the deference due to Queen Street, Mayfair.

Lady Pridmore had always thought--and Silvia, Uncle George, and the Prince had agreed with her--that Mary was predestined for Edward Ambrose. For one thing, Edward, when his father died, would be very well off--not that the Pridmores were in the least mercenary. They simply knew what money means to such a being as man in such a world as the present. Then Edward was liked by them all. It had long been a mystery why Mary had not married him. He was always her faithful cavalier, and a rather exceptional man. And now she had suddenly gone off at half c.o.c.k, as Uncle George expressed it.

During this period, tribulation was rife at other places also. Edward Ambrose was in no enviable frame of mind. The woman he loved and the friend he served were cutting deeply into his life. But of one thing he was convinced--neither of them realized their danger.

He was a sufficient judge of his kind to know that Henry Harper was not a man willfully to practice deceit. Ambrose was aware of the skeleton in the cupboard. It was ever present to his mind. And his position was rendered painfully difficult by the fact that he was under a pledge not to reveal it. The root of the matter, as far as Harper was concerned, was that his inexperience of the world might cause him to drift into a relationship which he did not intend and could not foresee.

Ambrose was tormented by a desire to tell Mary Pridmore all he knew.

Surely it was his duty. Her ignorance of certain facts, which Harper most unwisely withheld, was a very real and grave danger. Ambrose realized how quickly such a woman, almost unknown to herself, could sweep a man off his feet. He also felt that Henry Harper, with his atmosphere of mystery, and his remarkable powers which needed the help of a strong and stable intelligence, might make an irresistible appeal to a girl like Mary Pridmore.

Ambrose felt that he alone knew the peril which beset his friends. Yet he could not warn one without treason to the other. His regard for both seemed to preclude all interference. He had a sincere affection for a brave-spirited man; for Mary he had long cherished something more than affection; yet in circ.u.mstances such as these an untimely word might do mischief untold.