“Very good of you,” said Rupert.  He dropped his chaffing air and grasped the proffered hand with abrupt friendliness.  There was something about this man that caught his fancy.  “You would be very welcome at any time.  It isn’t much of a show down there, but if you don’t mind that—­”

“I shouldn’t come for the sake of the show,” said Mordaunt.  “I’d sooner see a battalion at work than at play.”

“Ah!  Wouldn’t I, too!” said Rupert, with sudden fire.  “We hope to be ordered to India next year.  That wouldn’t be absolute stagnation, anyhow.  I loathe home work.”

Mordaunt looked at the straight young figure brimming with activity, and decided that the more work this boy had to do the better it would be for him morally and physically.

“Keeps you in training,” he suggested.

“Oh, I don’t know.  One is apt to get unconscionably slack.  It’s a fool of a world.  The work is all wrongly distributed; some fellows have to work like niggers and others that want to work never get a look in.”  Rupert broke off to laugh.  “I’m a discontented beggar, I tell you frankly,” he said.  “But I don’t expect any sympathy from you, because, being what you are, you wouldn’t reasonably be expected to understand.”

“My good fellow, I haven’t always been prosperous,” Mordaunt assured him.  “I’ve had luck, I admit.  It comes to most of us in some form if we are only sharp enough to recognize it.  Perhaps it hasn’t come your way yet.”

“I’ll be shot if it has!” said Rupert.

“But it will,” Mordaunt maintained, “sooner or later.”

“Oh, do you believe in luck?” broke in Chris eagerly.  “Because there’s the new moon coming up over the trees, and I’ve just seen it through glass.  Don’t look, Trevor, for goodness’ sake!  No, no, you shan’t!  Shut your eyes while I open the window.  You shall see it from the balcony.”

She sprang to the window, and Mordaunt followed with an indulgent smile.

Rupert scoffed openly.  “Chris is mad on charms of every description.  If she hears a dog howl in the night she thinks there is going to be an earthquake.  You had better not encourage her, or there will be no end to it.”

But Chris, with her fiance’s hand fast in hers, was already at the window.

“If you don’t believe in it, don’t come!” she threw back over her shoulder.  “Now, Trevor, you’ve got to turn your money, bow three times, and wish.  Do wish for something really good to make up for my bad luck!”

Mordaunt complied deliberately with her instructions, her hand still in his.

“I have wished,” he announced at length.

“Have you?  What was it?  Yes, you may tell me as I’m not doing any.  Quick, before Rupert comes!”

Her eager face was close to his.  He looked into the clear eyes and paused.  “I don’t think I will tell you,” he said finally.

“Oh, how mean!  And you would have missed the opportunity but for me!”