“In disgrace!  Trevor—­why?”

He put his arm deliberately round her again, and led her to the stairs.

“Tell me why,” she said.

“I will tell you tomorrow,” he repeated.

But she would not be satisfied.  She turned upon the first stair, confronting him.  “Tell me now, please, Trevor.”

He raised his brows at her insistence.

“Yes,” she said in answer, “but I want to know.  You don’t—­you can’t—­blame him for—­for—­” she faltered and bit her lip desperately—­“you know what,” she ended under her breath.

“I do blame him,” he answered quietly.  “I forbade him strictly to attempt to drive without someone of experience beside him.”

“Oh!” A sharp note of misgiving sounded in Chris’s voice.  “You said that to me too!” she said.

He looked at her very gravely.  “I did.”

“Then—­then”—­she stretched a hand to the bannisters—­“you are angry with me too?”

“No, I am not angry with you,” he said, and she was conscious of a subtle softening in his tone.  “I am never angry with you, Chris,” he said emphatically.

“And yet you are angry with Noel,” she said.

“That is different.”

“How—­different?”

He took her hand into his.  “Do you know he nearly killed you?”

She started a little.  “Me?”

He nodded grimly.  “Yes.  If it had been only himself, it wouldn’t have mattered.  But you—­you!”

His arms went out to her suddenly; he caught her to him, held her passionately close for a moment, then lifted her and began to carry her upstairs.

She lay against his breast in quivering silence.  It seemed that Cinders did not matter either so long as she was safe; and though she knew beyond all question that he was not angry with her, she was none the less afraid.

CHAPTER V

THE LOOKER-ON

“I think that it should be remembered that he is young,” said Bertrand, “also that he has been punished enough severely already.”

He leaned back in an easy-chair with a cigarette which he had suffered to go out between his fingers, and watched Mordaunt pacing up and down.

Mordaunt made no pretence of smoking.  He walked to and fro with his hands behind him, his brows drawn in thought, his mouth very grim.

“My good fellow, he will have forgotten all that by to-morrow,” he said, with a faint, hard smile.  “I know these Wyndhams.”

“I also,” said Bertrand quietly.

Mordaunt glanced at him.  “Well?”

The Frenchman hesitated momentarily.  “I think,” he said, “that you will find them more easy to lead than to drive.”

Mordaunt’s frown deepened.  “They are all so hopelessly lawless, so utterly unprincipled.  As for lying, this boy at least thinks nothing of it.”

“Ah, that is detestable, that!” Bertrand said.  “But he would not lie to you unless you made him afraid, hein?”