The little party broke up soon afterwards, but Lady Caroom touched Brooks upon his shoulder.

"Come into my room for a few minutes," she said. "I want to talk with you."

CHAPTER VII

FATHER AND SON

"Do you know," Lady Caroom said, motioning Brooks to a seat by her side, "that I feel very middle-class and elderly and interfering. For I am going to talk to you about Sybil."

Brooks was a little paler than usual. This was one of those rare occasions when he found his emotions very hard to subdue. And it had come so suddenly.

"After we left Enton," Lady Caroom said, thoughtfully, "I noticed a distinct change in her. The first evidences of it were in her treatment of Sydney Molyneux. I am quite sure that she purposely precipitated matters, and when he proposed refused him definitely."

"I do not think," Brooks found voice to say, "that she would ever have married Sydney Molyneux."

"Perhaps not," Lady Caroom admitted, "but at any rate before our visit to Enton she was quite content to have him around--she was by no means eager to make up her mind definitely. After we left she seemed to deliberately plan to dispose of him finally. Since then--I am talking in confidence, Kingston-she has refused t e Duke of Atherstone."

Brooks was silent. His self-control was being severely tested. His heart was beating like a sledgehammer--he was very anxious to avoid Lady Caroom's eyes.

"Atherstone," she said, slowly, "is quite the most eligible bachelor in England, and he is, as you know, a very nice, unaffected boy. There is only one possible inference for me, as Sybil's mother, to draw, and that is that she cares, or is beginning to think that she cares, for some one else."

"Some one else? Do you know whom?" Brooks asked.

"If you do not know," Lady Caroom answered, "I do not."

Brooks threw aside all attempt at disguise. He looked across at Lady Caroom, and his eyes were very bright.

"I have never believed," he said, "that Sybil would be likely to care for me. I can scarcely believe it now."

Lady Caroom hesitated.

"In any case," she said, "could you ask her to marry you? You must see that as things are it would be impossible!"

"Impossible!" he muttered. "Impossible!"

"Of course," she answered, briskly. "You must be a man of the world enough to know that. You could not ask a girl in Sybil's position to share a borrowed name, nor would the other conditions permit of your marrying her. That is why I want to talk to you."

"Well?"

"Is there any immediate chance of your reconciliation with the Marquis of Arranmore?"

"None," Brooks answered.

"Well, then," Lady Caroom said, "there is no immediate chance of your being in a position to marry Sybil. Don't look at me as though I were saying unkind things. I am not. I am only talking common-sense. What is your income?"

"About two thousand pounds, but some of that half, perhaps more--goes to the Society."

"Exactly. It would be impossible for you to marry Sybil on the whole of it, or twice the whole of it."

"You want me then," Brooks said, "to be reconciled to my father. Yet you--you yourself will not trust him."

"I have not expressed any wish of the sort," Lady Caroom said, kindly.

"I only wished to point out that as things are you were not in a position to ask Sybil to marry you, and therefore I want you to keep away from her. I mean this kindly for both of you. Of course if Sybil is absolutely in earnest, if the matter has gone too far, we must talk it all over again and see what is to be done. But I want you to give her a chance. Keep away for a time. Your father may live for twenty-five years. If your relations with him all that time continue as they are now, marriage with a girl brought up like Sybil would be an impossibility."

Brooks was silent for several moments. Then he looked up suddenly.

"Has Lady Sybil said anything to you--which led you to speak to me?"

Lady Caroom shook her head.

"No. She is very young, you know. Frankly, I do not believe that she knows her own mind. You have not spoken to her, of course?" "No!"

"And you will not?"

"I suppose," Brooks said, "that I must not think of it."

"You must give up thinking about her, of course," Lady Caroom said, "until--" Until what?

"Until you can ask her--if ever you do ask her--to marry you in your proper name."

Brooks set his teeth and walked up and down the little room.

"That," he said, "may be never."

"Exactly," Lady Caroom agreed. "That is why I am suggesting that you do not see her so often."

He stopped opposite her.

"Does he--does Lord Arranmore know anything of this?"

She shook her head.

"Not from me. He may have heard whispers. To tell you the truth, I myself have been asked questions during the last few days. You have been seen about a good deal with Sybil, and you are rather a mystery to people. That is why I felt compelled to speak." He nodded. "I see!"

"You must not blame me," she went on, softly. "You know, Kingston, that I like you, that I would give you Sybil willingly under ordinary circumstances. I don't want to speak to her if I can help it. And, Kingston, there is one thing more I must say to you. It is on my mind.

It keeps me awake at night. I think that it will make an old woman of me very soon. If--if we should be wrong?"

"There is no possibility of that," he answered, sadly. "Lord Arranmore is candour itself, even in his selfishness."

"His face haunts me," she murmured. "There is something so terribly impersonal, so terribly sad about it. He looks on at everything, he joins in nothing. They say that he gambles, but he never knows whether he is winning or losing. He gives entertainments that are historical, and remains as cold as ice to guests whom a prince would be glad to welcome. His horse won that great race the other day, and he gave up his place on the stand, just before the start, to a little girl, and never even troubled to watch the race, though his winnings were enormous. He bought the Frivolity Theatre, produced this new farce, and has never been seen inside the place. What does it mean, Kingston?

There must be suffering behind all this--terrible suffering."

"It is a law of retribution," Brooks said, coldly. "He has made other people suffer all his life. Now perhaps his turn has come. He spends fortunes trying to amuse himself and cannot. Are we to pity him for that?"

"I have heard of people," she said, looking at him intently, "who are too proud to show the better part of themselves, who rather than court pity or even sympathy will wear a mask always, will hide the good that is in them and parade the bad."

"You love him still?" he said, wonderingly.