“Often?  No, once a month perhaps.”  His lips shut tight, as though the question had been a plea that he should see her more frequently and he were determined to refuse.

“But why is that?” she asked sympathetically.  “Doesn’t she often come to Town?”

“Oh yes—­most part of the year.  They’ve got a small house in Sloane Street, and live there all the winter.”

Sally looked at him with troubled eyes—­troubled in sympathy because, with the quick wit of a woman in love, she had felt here the need of it.  His sister lived in Sloane Street—­lived there for the most part of the winter, and he saw but little of her; yet he kept her miniature lovingly in his room.  If there is but one woman pictured on his walls, you may be sure a man rates her high.  Sally knew all this—­knew there was more behind it, yet hesitated to intrude.  Another gentle question was rising to her lips, when he volunteered it all.

“My sister and I differ in our points of view,” he said without sentiment.  “We look at life from hopelessly opposite quarters.  That’s why I live here.  The house, the grounds, they were all left to me when my father died.  She was given her legacy in a round sum—­not very round either.  He wasn’t particularly well off.  Whatever it was, at any rate, it meant little or nothing to her.  The house—­the property—­they were the only things worth having.  I was the eldest son—­I got ’em.  P’raps this bores you?”

She shook her head firmly—­an emphatic negative.  “How could you possibly think that?”

“Well, anyhow,” he continued, “she was disappointed.  She’s become—­since she married—­a woman to whom social power is a jewelled sceptre.  Before then, she was what you see in that miniature—­a little bit of a child with a pretty face that wanted kissing—­and got it.  Got it from me as well as others.  I was fond of her, even after she married this man—­a soldier; he’s in the Guards, and after dinner sometimes thinks he has an eye to the situation in politics.  Even after that, when she began to lift her head so that you couldn’t kiss her and wouldn’t have wanted to if you could, I was fond of her.  But I hate society—­I wouldn’t come to her crushes—­I wouldn’t go to her dinners.  These things sicken me.  They’re as empty as an echo.  We fell out a bit over that; but I was living down at the Manor then, and so it didn’t actually come to a split.  But when the governor died and she found that I’d been left the house which was worth no end to her—­socially—­and she’d been left the money which really wasn’t worth a damn—­sorry—­that slipped out”—­Sally smiled—­“she came back to me, arms round the neck—­head quite low enough to be kissed then—­and did her best to patch the business up.  I suppose that rattled me.  I could see the value of it.  It was just as empty as all the rest of her social schemes.  I took her at the valuation, told her she could have the house and I’d take the money, and behaved generally like a young fool.  I was