“So Nina has made up her mind to retrieve the family fortunes,” yawned Leo, the second son of the house.  “Uncommonly generous of her.  My only regret is that it didn’t occur to her that it would be a useful thing to do some time back.  Is the young man coming to discuss settlements to-night?”

“What a beast you are!” growled Burton, the eldest son.

“We’re all beasts, if it comes to that,” returned Leo complacently.  “May as well say it as think it.  She has simply sold herself to the highest bidder to get the poor old pater out of Queer Street.  And we shall, I hope, get our share of the spoil.  I understand that Wingarde is lavish with his worldly goods.  He certainly ought to be.  He’s a millionaire of the first water.  A thousand or so distributed among his wife’s relations would mean no more to him than the throwing of the crusts to the sparrows.”  He stopped to laugh lazily.  “And the wife’s relations would flock in swarms to the feast,” he added in a cynical drawl.

Burton growled again unintelligibly.  He strongly resented the sacrifice, though he could not deny that there was dire need for it.

The family fortunes were at a very low ebb.  His father’s lands were mortgaged already beyond their worth, and he and his brother had been trained for nothing but a life of easy independence.

There were five more sons of the family, all at various stages of education—­two at college, three at Eton.  It behooved the only girl of the family to put her shoulder to the wheel if the machine were to be kept going on its uphill course.  Lord Marchmont had speculated desperately and with disastrous results during the past five years.  His wife was hopelessly extravagant.  And, of late, visions of the bankruptcy court had nearly distracted the former.

It had filtered round among his daughter’s admirers that money, not rank, would win the prize.  But somehow no one had expected Hereford Wingarde, the financial giant, to step coolly forward and secure it for himself.  He had been regarded as out of the running.  Women did not like him.  He was scarcely ever seen in Society.  And it was freely rumoured that he hated women.

Nina Marchmont, moreover, had always treated him with marked coldness, as if to demonstrate the fact that his wealth held no attractions for her.  On the rare occasions that they met she was always ready to turn aside with half-contemptuous dislike on her proud face, and amuse herself with the tamest of her worshippers rather than hold any intercourse with the fabulous monster of the money-markets.

Certainly there was a surprise in store for the world in which she moved.  It was also certain that she meant to carry it through with rigid self-control.

Meeting her two brothers at lunch, she received the half-shamed congratulations of one and the sarcastic comments of the other without the smallest hint of discomfiture.  She had come straight from an interview with her father whom she idolized, and his gruff:  “Well, my dear, well; delighted that you have fallen in love with the right man,” and the unmistakable air of relief that had accompanied the words, had warmed her heart.