She puckered her brows a little.  “I don’t quite know what you mean,” she said.

He turned from her questioning eyes, pulling his hat down over his own.  “No,” he said.  “But—­you know enough, ma petite, you know enough.”

“I sometimes think I don’t know anything,” she said restlessly.

He stretched out a hand to her, as one who guides a child.  “Ah, Christine,” he said sadly, “but it is better to know the little than the much.”

“You all say that,” said Chris.  “I think it is rather a horrid world for some things, don’t you?”

“But the world is that which we make it,” said Bertrand.

CHAPTER II

ONE OF THE FAMILY

“But, my dear chap, what bally rot!  Anyone would think I’d never smoked a pipe or handled a gun before, when I’ve done both for years.”

Noel Wyndham’s smile was the most engaging part of him; it had the knack of disarming the most wrathful.  It had served him many a time in the hour of retribution, and he never scrupled to make use of it.  It was quite his most valuable asset.

“Don’t be waxy, old chap,” he pleaded, slipping an affectionate hand inside his brother-in-law’s unresponsive arm.  “I’ve been having such a high old time.  And I’m not a bloomin’ kid.  I know what I’m about.”

“All very well,” Mordaunt said.  “I don’t object to anything in reason.  But you are too fond of taking French leave with other people’s property.  That gun, for instance—­”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the boy assured him eagerly.  “It kicks most infernally, but I soon got the trick of it after a bruise or two.  I say, you haven’t seen anything of that little devil Cinders?  He’s gone down a rabbit-hole.  Won’t Chris be in a stew?”

Mordaunt possessed himself of the gun without further argument.  “Then you’d better set to work and find him.  Chris is going out this afternoon.”

“In the motor?” Noel’s eyes shone.  “I’ll go, too.  You needn’t bother about Cinders.  He always turns up sooner or later.  Don’t tell Chris, or she’ll spend the rest of the day hunting for him.”

“She will probably want to know,” observed Mordaunt.

“I shall say I never had him,” said Noel unconcernedly.  “He won’t come to any harm, but you can turn that secretary fellow of yours on to the job if you’re feeling anxious.  I say, Trevor, we shan’t want the chauffeur.  Tell them, will you?”

“You certainly won’t go without him,” Mordaunt rejoined.  “And look here, Noel, you’re not to tell lies.  Understand?”

Noel looked up with a flicker of temper in his Irish eyes, “Oh, rats!” he said.

“Understand?” Mordaunt repeated.  “It’s the one thing I won’t put up with, so make up your mind to that.”

He spoke quite temperately, but with unswerving decision.  His eyes looked hard into Noel’s, and the boy’s spark of resentment went out like an extinguished match.