“Have you told Susan yet?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bland beamed; “I told her at once.  I should have liked to go about proclaiming the delightful news!”

Sylvia looked disturbed; Bland could almost have fancied she was angry.  As a matter of fact, troubled thoughts were flying through her mind.  It was obvious that she would shortly be called upon to face a crisis.

“After all,” she said, with an air of resignation which struck him as out of place, “I suppose you had to do so; but you lost no time.”

“Not a moment!” he assured her.  “I felt I couldn’t neglect anything that brought you nearer to me.”

Then they went on, and meeting the other guests in the hall, Sylvia acknowledged the shower of congratulations with a smiling face.  She escaped after dinner, however, without a sign to Bland, and did not reappear.  During the evening, he found Ethel West sitting alone in a quiet nook.

“Mrs. Marston seemed a little disturbed at the news you gave her,” he remarked.

“So I thought,” said Ethel.

“I suppose the George you mentioned is her trustee, who went to Canada and took your brother?  You once told me something about him.”

“Yes,” said Ethel.  “You seem to have the gift of arriving at correct conclusions.”

“He’s an elderly man—­a business man of his cousin’s stamp—­I presume?”

Ethel laughed.

“Oh, no; they’re of very different type.  I should imagine that he’s younger than you are.  He was at Herbert’s one afternoon when you called.”

“Ah!” said Bland.  “I shall, no doubt, get to know him when next I come down.”

Then he talked about other matters until he left her, and after a while he found Kettering alone.

“Did you ever meet George Lansing?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” said his host.  “I know his cousin better.”

“He has been out in Canada, hasn’t he?”

“Yes; went out to look after Mrs. Marston’s property.  I understand he has been more or less successful.”

“When did he leave England?”

Kettering told him, and Bland considered.

“So Lansing has been out, and no doubt going to a good deal of trouble, for two years,” he said.  “That’s something beyond an ordinary executor’s duty.  What made him undertake it?”

Kettering smiled.

“It’s an open secret—­you’re bound to hear it—­that he had an admiration for Sylvia.  Still, there’s no ground for jealousy.  Lansing hadn’t a chance from the beginning.”

Bland concealed his feelings.

“How is that?  He must be an unusually good fellow if he stayed out there to look after things so long.”

“For one reason, he’s not Sylvia’s kind.  It was quite out of the question that she should ever have married him.”