He laughed again at that in a fashion that emboldened Chris to raise her head.

“I am quite in earnest,” she told him, in a tone that tried to be indignant.  “You’ll find me out presently.  And when you do—­”

She stopped with a gasp.  His arms were about her, holding her as she sat.  He looked straight down into the shining blue eyes.  “When I do, Chris—­” he said.

She met his look quite bravely.  She was even smiling rather tremulously herself.  “You will get a stick and beat me,” she said.  “I know.  People who have eyes like steel never make allowances for those who haven’t!”

She got no further, for quite suddenly Trevor Mordaunt dropped his self-restraint like an impeding cloak and caught her to his heart.  For the fraction of a second her fear came back, she almost made as if she would resist him; and then in a moment it was gone, lost in a wonder that left no room for anything else.  For he kissed her, once and once only, so passionately, so burningly, so possessively, that it seemed to Chris as if, without her own volition, even half against her will, she thereby became his own.  He had dominated her, he had won her, almost before she had had time to realize that there was a stranger within her gates.

CHAPTER III

THE WARNING

“Well, all I have to say is, ‘Bravo, young un!’” Rupert Wyndham stretched out a careless arm and encircled his sister’s waist therewith.  She was perched on the arm of his chair, and she tweaked his ear airily in response to this encouragement.

“Oh, you’re pleased, are you?” she said.  “That’s very nice of you.”

“Pleased is a term that does not express my feelings in the least,” he declared.  “I am transported with delight.  You are the last person I should have expected to retrieve the family fortunes, but you have done it right nobly.  I’m told the fellow is as rich as Croesus.  It’s to be hoped that he is quite resigned to the fact that he is going to have plenty of relations when he marries.  By the way, hasn’t he any of his own?”

“None that count—­only cousins and things.  Such a mercy!” said Chris.  “And oh, Rupert, isn’t it a blessing now that we never managed to sell Old Park, or even to let it?  We shall be able to live there ourselves and turn it into a perfect paradise.”

“He wants to buy it, eh?” Rupert glanced up keenly.

Chris nodded.  “It’s only in the clouds at present.  He said something about giving it to me when we marry.  But of course,” rather hastily, “we’re not going to be married for ever so long.  It would have to belong to him till then.  He is going to talk to you about it presently.  You wouldn’t object, would you?  You are entitled to your share now, he says, and Max will come into his directly.  But Noel’s will have to go into trust till he is of age.”

“An excellent idea!” declared Rupert.  “I’m damnably hard up, as your worthy fiance has probably divined.  But why this notion of not getting married for ever so long?  I don’t quite follow the drift of that.”