“Oh, yes, he’s all that.”  Kitty metaphorically tossed the whole pack of qualifications into the dustbin.  “But he’s got the devil’s own temper when he’s roused and he’s filled to the brim with good old-fashioned notions about a man being master in his own house, et cetera.  And no man will ever be master in his own house while Nan’s in it—­unless he breaks her.”

St. John stirred restlessly.

“Things are a bit complicated sometimes, aren’t they?” he said in a rather tired voice.  “Still”—­with an effort—­“we must hope for the best.  You’ve jumped far ahead of the actual state of affairs at present.”

“Roger’s tagging round after her from morning to night.”

“He’s not the first man to do that,” submitted Lord.  St. John, smiling, “Nan is—­Nan, you know, and you mustn’t assume too much from Roger’s liking to be with her.  I’m sure if I were one of her contemporary young men, I should ‘tag round’ just like the rest of ’em.  So don’t meet trouble half way.”

“Optimist!” said Kitty.

“Oh, no.”  The disclaimer came quickly.  “Philosopher.”

“I can’t be philosophical, unluckily.”

“My dear, we have no choice.  It isn’t we who move the pieces in the game.”

A silence followed.  Then, as Kitty vaguely murmured something about tea, St. John helped her out of the hammock, and together they strolled towards the house.  They found tea in progress on the square lawn facing the sea and every one foregathered there.  Nan, apparently in wild spirits, was fooling inimitably, and she bestowed a small, malicious smile on Kitty as she and Lord St. John joined the group around the tea-table.

It was a glorious afternoon.  The sea lay dappled with light and shade as the sun and vagrant breezes played with it, while for miles along the coast the great cliffs were wrapt in a soft, quivering haze so that the lines and curves of their vari-coloured strata, and the bleak, sheer menace of their height, as they overhung the blue water lapping on the sands below, were screened from view.

“There are some heavenly sandwiches here,” announced Nan.  “That is, if Sandy has left any.  Have you, Sandy?”

Sandy McBain grinned responsively.  He was the somewhat surprising offspring of the union between Nan’s Early Victorian aunt, Eliza, and a prosaic and entirely uninteresting Scotsman.  Red-haired and freckled, with the high cheekbones of his Celtic forebears, he was a young man of undeniable ugliness, redeemed only by a pair of green eyes as kind and honest as a dog’s, and by a voice of surprising charm and sweetness.

“Not many,” he replied easily.  “I gave you all the largest, anyway.”

“Sandy says he hasn’t left any,” resumed Nan calmly.

“At least, only small ones.  We mustn’t blame him.  What are they made of, Kitty?  They’d beguile a fasting saint—­let alone a material person like Sandy.”