“Good heavens, child!” he said.  “You shall have it twice over if you like.  But why on earth didn’t you tell me before?  Don’t you know it’s very naughty to run up debts?”

She nodded.  “Yes, I know.  But I couldn’t help it.  There were things I wanted.  And London is such an expensive place.  You do understand, dear Jack, don’t you?”

Jack thought he did.  He was, moreover, too fond of his young cousin to treat her with severity.  But he considered it his duty to deliver a brief lecture on the dangers of insolvency, to which Chris listened with becoming docility, thanking him with a quick, sweet smile when he had done.

Jack did not flatter himself that he had succeeded in making a very deep impression.  He wondered a little what Trevor Mordaunt would have said under similar circumstances.

“I hope she will be straightforward with him,” was his reflection.  “But she is a Wyndham of the Wyndhams, and everyone knows that her father didn’t suffer over-much from that complaint.”

Which was true.  Chris’s father had been one of those baffling persons who are always in want of money and yet seem quite incapable of giving a clear account of their wants.  His affairs had been in a perpetual muddle from the beginning of his career, and had probably ended so.

“Most unsatisfactory!” as Aunt Philippa invariably remarked, as a suitable conclusion to any discussion on the subject of her brother or any of his family.  How she personally had managed to escape the general blight that rested upon them was a mystery that no one—­not Aunt Philippa herself—­had ever been able to solve.

CHAPTER XV

MISGIVINGS

Hilda Forest’s wedding was one of the events of the season.  All London went to it.  Lord Percy Davenant, the bridegroom, was a man of many friends, and the bride’s mother prided herself upon the width of her own social circle.

In the midst of the fuss and tumult the bride, very grave and serene, with shining eyes, went her appointed way.  Everyone was loud in her praise.  Her bearing was admirable.  She was as one on whom a veil of happiness had fallen, and external things scarcely touched her.

She went through her part steadfastly and well, forgetful utterly of the watching crowds, conscious only of one being in all that critical multitude, holding only one thought in the silent sanctuary of her soul.

And Chris, the chief bridesmaid, walking alone behind her, watched and marvelled.  She liked Lord Percy Davenant.  He was big, good-natured, rollicking, and many a joke had they had together.  But no faintest tinge of romance hung about him in her opinion.  She could not with the utmost effort of the imagination see what there was in him to bring that light into Hilda’s eyes.

It was odd, thought Chris, very odd.  If it had been Trevor, now—­She could quite easily have understood it if Hilda had fallen in love with him.  And they would have been eminently well suited to one another, too.  Yes, it was very strange, quite unaccountable!  Here she remembered that Trevor was probably somewhere in the crowd behind her, and peeped over her shoulder surreptitiously to get a glimpse of him.