She smiled up at him wistfully.  “Things have been pretty horrid lately.  But I won’t worry any more if—­if you tell me I needn’t.”

“You needn’t,” he said, and impulsively he stooped and kissed her.  He had always had a protecting tenderness for his little sister.

They descended to the drawing-room to find Aunt Philippa writing letters in solitary state.  The rest of the company, with the exception of Mordaunt, who was at work in his own room, were in the billiard-room just beyond, and Chris and Rupert repaired thither, relieved to make their escape so easily.

They found Bertrand, who was an expert player, making a long break.  He was playing against Max, whose opinion of him was obviously rising with this display of skill.

He was engaged upon a most difficult stroke when Chris entered, and she stopped behind him lest she should disturb his aim.  But he turned round at once to her, leaving the balls untouched.

“Mais non!” he declared lightly.  “I cannot play with my back to my hostess.  It is an affair tres difficile, and I must have everything in my favour.”

“Oh, don’t let me spoil your luck!” she said.

She came and stood at the end of the table to watch him.

“That would not be possible,” he protested, as he applied himself again to the ball.

He achieved the stroke with that finish and dexterity that marked all he did.

“Oh, I say!” said Noel disgustedly.  “You haven’t a look-in, Max.  He plays like a machine.”

“You like not to be beaten by a Frenchman, no?” laughed Bertrand. “Il faut que les anglais soient toujours, toujours les premiers, hein?” He stopped suddenly, for Chris had made the faintest movement, as if his words had touched some chord of memory.  He flashed her a swift look, and the smile died out of his face.  He moved round the table, and again stooped to his stroke.  “But what is success after all,” he said, “and what is failure?”

“You ought to know,” Max observed dryly, as again he made his point.

The Frenchman straightened himself.  There was something of kinship between these two, a tacit sympathy that had taken root on the night of Chris’s birthday, an understanding that called for no explanation.

“Yes,” he said, with a quick nod, “I know them both.  They are worth just—­that.”  He snapped his fingers in the air.  “They pass like”—­he hesitated a moment, then ended with deliberation—­“like pictures in the sand.”

“The same remark applies to most things,” said Rupert.

Bertrand glanced at him.  “To all but one, monsieur,” he said, in a queer tone that was almost tinged with irony.

Again he bent himself to a stroke with a quick, light grace, as though he regarded success as a foregone conclusion.

“Look at that!” said Noel in dejection, as the ball cannoned triumphantly down the table.  “The gods are all on his side.”