“I advise you to try, for this is the only warning you will get.”

“I cannot believe, Holland, that you would really shoot me in cold blood in the presence of my own sister.”

“You had better behave as if you believed it.”

“I don’t like this arrangement,” McVay broke out peevishly.  “Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I did forget,—­that I put my hand on your shoulder—­a very natural gesture.”

“I should shoot instantly.”

“But fancy the shock to Cecilia.”

“Not more of a shock, perhaps, than discovering that you are a thief.  And another thing, it may be very gay and amusing to be forever fooling about the subject, but I advise you against it.  It does not amuse me.”

“Oh, be honest, Holland, it does, it must amuse you.  It is essentially amusing.”

“It won’t amuse her, or you either when she finds out that you are not only a thief but that you have been able to find amusement in deceiving her.”

Again McVay’s gaiety seemed momentarily dashed.  “Very true,” he said, “I had not thought of that.  But then,” he added more brightly, “who can tell if it will actually fall to my lot to tell her.  Things happen so strangely.  It may turn out that that is your part.”

“It may,” said Geoffrey, “but only because I have had to shoot after all.”  With which he opened the door and they returned to the library.

V

Cecilia was not in the library, and McVay, without comment on her absence, turned at once to his book.

“If you won’t think me impolite, Holland, I’ll go on with my Sterne.  Conversation is always a great temptation to me, but I have so little opportunity to read that I feel I ought not to neglect it,—­especially as your books are so unusual.”

He settled himself to Tristram Shandy with appreciation, but Geoffrey could not read.  He sat, indeed, with a book open on his knee, but his eyes were fixed on the carpet.  The knowledge of the girl’s presence in his house distracted him like a lantern swung before his eyes.  He gave himself up to steeping himself in his emotion, which, in some situations, is the nearest thing possible to thinking.

Geoffrey’s success with women had been conspicuous, as was natural for he was good looking, rich and apparently susceptible.  As a matter of fact, however, his susceptibility was purely superficial, and for this very reason he was not afraid to give it full sway.  The deeply susceptible man learns to be cautious, to distrust his feelings, but Geoffrey had always too truly recognised his fundamental indifference to have any reason to distrust himself.  He had never been in love.  Like Ferdinand he, “for different virtues had liked many women,” although in his case it had not always been necessarily virtues that had attracted him.  But there were certain women who had always appealed to him for some conspicuous