“You make that very obvious,” laughed Nick.  “It’s a mistake.  If you keep bringing her to bay, you’ll never catch her.  She’s always on her guard with you now.  She never breathes freely with you in the room, poor kid.”

“What is she afraid of?” growled Max.

“You know best.”  Nick glanced up again with sudden keenness.  “Don’t harry the child, Wyndham!” he said, a half-whimsical note of pleading in his voice.  “If you know you’re going to win through, you can afford to let her have the honours of war.  There’s nothing softens a woman more.”

“I don’t mean to harry her.”  Max turned squarely round upon him.  “But neither have I the smallest intention of fetching and carrying for her till she either kicks me or pats me on the head.  I shouldn’t appreciate either, and it’s a method I don’t believe in.”

“There I am with you,” said Nick.  “But for Heaven’s sake, man, be patient!  It’s no joke, I assure you, if the one woman takes it into her head that you are nothing short of a devouring monster.  She will fly to the ends of the earth to escape you sooner than stay to hear reason.”

Max smiled in his one-sided fashion.  “Has that been your experience?”

Nick nodded.  There was a reminiscent glitter in his eyes.  “My courtship represented two years’ hard labour.  It nearly killed me.  However, we’ve made up for it since.”

“I don’t propose to spend two years over mine,” said Max.

Nick’s eyes flashed upwards, meeting those of the younger man with something of the effect of a collision.  His body however remained quite passive, and his voice even sounded as if it had a laugh in it as he made response.

“I think you’re a decent chap,” he said, “and I think you might make her happy; but I’m damned if she shall marry any man—­good, bad, or indifferent—­before she’s ready.”

“You also think you could prevent such a catastrophe?” suggested Max cynically.

Nick grinned with baffling amiability.  “No, I don’t think.  I know.  Quite a small spoke is enough to stop a wheel—­even a mighty big wheel—­if it’s going too fast.”

And again, more than half against his will, Max laughed.  “You make a very efficient chaperon,” he said.

“It’s my speciality just now,” said Nick.

He closed his eyes again peaceably, and gave himself up to his cigar.

Max, his rough red brows drawn together, leaned back against the mantelpiece and smoked his pipe, staring at the opposite wall.  There was no strain in the silence between them.  Both were preoccupied.

Suddenly through the open window there rippled in the fairy notes of a mandolin, and almost at once a voice of most alluring sweetness began to sing: 

   “O, wert thou in the cauld blast,
     On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
   My plaidie to the angry airt,
     I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee. 
   Or did misfortune’s bitter storms
     Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
   Thy bield should be my bosom,
     To share it a’, to share it a’.”