"And you think," Mary said, with a curious side-glance at him, "that I should cure your loneliness. Thank you. I am very happy as I am.

Please forget everything you have said, and let us go."

Brooks was a little bewildered--and manlike a little more in earnest.

"For some reason or other," he said, "you seem disinclined to take me seriously. I cannot understand you, Mary. At any rate you must answer me differently. I want you to be my wife. I am fond of you--you know that--and I will do my best to make you happy."

"Thank you," Mary said, hardly. "I am sorry, but I must decline your offer--absolutely. Now, let us go, shall we?"

She would have risen, but he laid his hand firmly upon her shoulder.

"Not till I have some sort of explanation," he said. "Is it that you do not care for me, Mary?"

She turned round upon him with colour enough in her cheeks and a strange angry light burning in her eyes.

"You might have spared me that also," she exclaimed. "You are determined to humiliate me, to make me remember that hateful afternoon in my rooms--oh, I can say it if I like--when I kissed you. I knew then that sooner or later you would make up your mind that it was your duty to ask me to marry you. Only you might have done it by letter. It would have been kinder. Never mind. You have purged your conscience, and you have got your answer. Now let us go."

Brooks looked at her for a moment amazed beside himself with wonder and self-reproach.

"Mary," he said, quietly, "I give you my word that nothing which I have said this evening has the least connection with that afternoon. I give you my word that not for a moment have I thought of it in connection with what I have said to you to-night."

She looked at him steadfastly, and her eyes were full of things which he could not understand.

"When did you make up your mind--to ask me this?"

He pointed to the little table where they had been sitting.

Only a few minutes ago. I confess it was an impulse. I think that I realized as we sat there how dear you had grown to me, Mary--how dull life was without you."

"You say these things to me," she exclaimed, "when all the time you love another woman."

He started a little. She smiled bitterly as she saw the shadow on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, deliberately, "that you love Sybil Caroom. Is it not true?"

His head drooped a little. He had never asked himself even so much as this. He was face to face now with all the concentrated emotions which lately had so much disturbed his life. The problem which he had so sedulously avoided was forced upon him ruthlessly, with almost barbaric simplicity.

"I do not know," he answered, vaguely. "I have never asked myself. I do not wish to ask myself. Why do you speak of her? She is not of our world, the world to which I want to belong. I want to forget her."

"You are a little mad to-night, my friend," Mary said. "To-morrow you will feel differently. If Sybil Caroom cares for you, what does it matter which world she belongs to? She is not the sort of girl to be bound by old-fashioned prejudices. But I do not understand you at all to-night. You are not yourself. I think that you are--a little cruel."

"Cruel?" he repeated.

Her face darkened.

"Oh, it is only natural," she said, with a note of suppressed passion in her how tone. "It is just the accursed egotism of your sex. What right have you to make us suffer so--to ask me to marry you--and sit by my side and wonder whether you care for another woman? Can't you see how humiliating it all is? It is an insult to ask a woman to marry you to cure your loneliness, to make you a home to settle your indecision. It is an insult to ask a woman to marry you for any reason except that you care for her more than any other woman in the world, and can tell her so trustfully, eagerly. Please to put me in a cab at once, and never speak of these things again."

She was half-way across the lawn before he could stop her, her head thrown back, carrying herself proudly and well, moving as it seemed to him with a sort of effortless dignity wholly in keeping with the vigour of her words. He obeyed her literally. There was nothing else for him to do. His slight effort to join her in the cab she firmly repulsed, holding out her hand and speaking a few cheerful words of thanks for her evening's entertainment. And when the cab rolled away Brooks felt lonelier than ever.

CHAPTER X

LADY SYBIL SAYS "YES"

The carriage plunged into the shadow of the pine-woods, and commenced the long uphill ascent to Saalburg. Lady Caroom put down her parasol and turned towards Sybil, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed upon the narrow white belt of road ahead.

"Now, Sybil," she said, "for our talk."

"Your talk," Sybil corrected her, with a smile.

I'm to be listener."

"Oh, it may not be so one-sided after all," Lady Caroom declared. "And we had better make haste, or that impetuous young man of yours will come pounding after us on his motor before we know where we are. What are you going to do about him, Sybil?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you'll have to make up your mind. He's getting on my nerves.

You must decide one way or another."

Sybil sighed.

"He's quite the nicest young man I know--of his class," she remarked.

"Exactly," Lady Caroom assented. "And though I think you will admit that I am one of the least conventional of mothers, I must really say I don't think that it is exactly a comfortable thing to do to marry a man who is altogether outside one's own circle."

"Mr. Brooks," Sybil said, "is quite as well bred as Atherstone."

"He is his equal in breeding and in birth," Lady Caroom declared. "You know all about him. I admit," she continued, "that it sounds like a page out of a novel. But it isn't. The only pity is--from one point of view--that it makes so little difference."

"You think," Sybil asked, "that he will really keep his word--that he will not be reconciled with Lord Arranmore?"

"I am sure of it, my dear," Lady Caroom answered. "Unless a miracle happens, he will continue to be Mr. Kingston Brooks for the next ten or fifteen years, for Lord Arranmore's lifetime, and you know that they are a long-lived race. So you see the situation remains practically unaltered by what I have told you. Mr. Kingston Brooks is a great favourite of mine. I am very fond of him indeed. But I very much doubt--even if he should ask you--whether you would find your position as his wife particularly comfortable. You and I, Sybil, have no secrets from one another. I wish you would tell me exactly how you feel about him."

Sybil smiled--a little ruefully.

"If I knew--exactly," she answered, "I should know exactly what to do.

But I don't. You know how uninteresting our set of young men are as a rule. Well, directly I met Mr. Brooks at Enton I felt that he was different. He interested me very much. Then I have always wanted to do something useful, to get something different into my life, and he found me exactly the sort of work I wanted. But he has never talked to me as though he cared particularly though I think that he does a little."

"It is easy to see," Lady Caroom remarked, "that you are not head over ears in love."

"Mother," Sybil answered, "do you believe that girls often do fall head over ears in love? If Mr. Brooks and I met continually, and if he and his father were reconciled, well, I think it would be quite easy for me very soon to care for him a great deal. If even now he had followed me here, was with us often, and showed that he was really very fond of me, I think that I should soon be inclined to return it--perhaps even--I don't know--to risk marrying him, and giving up our ordinary life. But as it is I like to think of him, I should like him to be here; but I am not, as you say, head over ears in love with him."

"And now about Atherstone?" Lady Caroom said.

"Well, Atherstone has improved a great deal," Sybil answered, thoughtfully. "There are a great many things about him which I like very much. He is always well dressed and fresh and nice. He enjoys himself without being dissipated, and he is perfectly natural. He is rather boyish perhaps, but then he is young. He is not afraid to laugh, and I like the way he enters into everything. And I think I like his persistence."

"As his wife," Lady Caroom said, "you would have immense opportunities for doing good. He has a great deal of property in London, besides three huge estates in Somerset."