It was an absurd situation, but he was host and Hardy allowed him to see pretty plainly that he was a guest.  He answered the latter’s remarks with a very ill grace, and took covert stock of him as one of a species he had not encountered before.  One result of his stock-taking was that he was spared any feeling of surprise when his visitor came the following evening.

“It’s the thin end of the wedge,” said Miss Nugent, who came into the room after Hardy had departed; “you don’t know him as well as I do.”

“Eh?” said her father, sharply.

“I mean that you are not such a judge of character as I am,” said Kate; “and besides, I have made a special study of young men.  The only thing that puzzles me is why you should have such an extraordinary fascination for him.”

“You talk too much, miss,” said the captain, drawing the tobacco jar towards him and slowly filling his pipe.

Miss Nugent sighed, and after striking a match for him took a seat on the arm of his chair and placed her hand on his shoulder.  “I can quite understand him liking you,” she said, slowly.

The captain grunted.

“And if he is like other sensible people,” continued Miss Nugent, in a coaxing voice, “the more he sees of you the more he’ll like you.  I do hope he has not come to take you away from me.”

[Illustration:  “I do hope he has not come to take you away from me.”]

The indignant captain edged her off the side of his chair; Miss Nugent, quite undisturbed, got on again and sat tapping the floor with her foot.  Her arm stole round his neck and she laid her cheek against his head and smiled wickedly.

“Nice-looking, isn’t he?” she said, in a careless voice.

“I don’t know anything about his looks,” growled her father.

Miss Nugent gave a little exclamation of surprise.  “First thing I noticed,” she said, with commendable gravity.  “He’s very good-looking and very determined.  What are you going to give him if he gets poor Jack out of this miserable business?”

“Give him?” said her father, staring.

“I met Jack yesterday,” said Kate, “and I can see that he is as wretched as he can be.  He wouldn’t say so, of course.  If Mr. Hardy is successful you ought to recognize it.  I should suggest one of your new photos in an eighteenpenny frame.”

She slipped off the chair and quitted the room before her father could think of a suitable retort, and he sat smoking silently until the entrance of Mrs. Kingdom a few minutes later gave him an opportunity of working off a little accumulated gall.

While the junior partner was thus trying to obtain a footing at Equator Lodge the gravest rumours of the senior partner’s health were prevalent in the town.  Nathan Smith, who had been to see him again, ostensibly to thank him for his efforts on his behalf, was of opinion that he was breaking up, and in conversation with Mr. Kybird shook his head over the idea that there would soon be one open-handed gentleman the less in a world which was none too full of them.