“I don’t attach so much importance that I steal them from other people,” said Geoffrey.

“Philistine, Holland, philistine!  Is not any one who has anything stealing from some one or other?  Of course.  But I see you don’t catch the idea.  Well, I dare say I would not either in your place—­rather think I would not.  My sister is just the same way.  Sweet girl, witty in her own way, but philistine.  She is so good as to be my companion, apparently on equal terms, in many ways my superior, but it would be impossible for me even to mention these ideas to her,—­ideas which are of the greatest interest to me.”

“I wonder,” said Geoffrey, “how much of all this rubbish you believe?”

McVay smiled with great sweetness.  “I wonder myself, Holland.  Still it is undeniably amusing, and the main thing is that I enjoy life,—­a hard life too in many ways.  Fate has dealt me some sad blows.  Look at such a coincidence as your turning up to-night, of all nights in the year.”

“It was scarcely a coincidence.  I came—­”

“Oh, I know, I know.  You came to see after your sister’s things, but still, if you look at it a little more carefully, you will see that it was a coincidence that you should be by nature a man of prompt action.  Nine men out of ten in your place—­still, I’m not depressed.  You cannot say, Holland, that I behave or talk like a man who has ten years of hard labour before him, can you?  I dare say you have never been thrown with a person who showed less anxiety.  Yet as a matter of fact, there is something preying on my mind.  Something entirely aside from anything you could imagine.”

“You don’t tell me!” said Geoffrey, who did not know whether to be most amused or infuriated by his companion’s conversation.

“I am about to tell you,” said McVay graciously, “I am very seriously worried about my sister.  In fact I don’t see that there is any getting away from it; you will have to let me go out for an hour or so and get her.”

“Let you do what?”

“Get my sister.  She’s living in a little hut in your woods, and I am actually afraid she will be snowed up.”

“It seems highly probable.”

“Well, then, I must go and get her.”

Geoffrey stared at him a moment, and then said:  “You must be crazy.”

“Maybe I am,” answered McVay, as if the suggestion were not without an amusing side.  “Maybe I am, but that is not the point.  Think of a girl, Holland, alone, all night, in such a storm.  Now, I put it to you:  it is not a position in which you would leave your sister, is it?”

Geoffrey began a sentence and finding it inadequate, contented himself with a laugh.

“There you see,” said McVay.  “It’s out of the question.  The place is draughty, too, though there is a stove.  Do you remember the house at all?  You would be surprised to see how nicely I’ve fixed it up for her.”

“No doubt I should,” replied Holland, thinking of the Vaughan and Marheim valuables.