“Impossible!” he muttered.  “Impossible!”

“Of course,” she answered, briskly.  “You must be a man of the world enough to know that.  You could not ask a girl in Sybil’s position to share a borrowed name, nor would the other conditions permit of your marrying her.  That is why I want to talk to you.”

“Well?”

“Is there any immediate chance of your reconciliation with the Marquis of Arranmore?”

“None,” Brooks answered.

“Well, then,” Lady Caroom said, “there is no immediate chance of your being in a position to marry Sybil.  Don’t look at me as though I were saying unkind things.  I am not.  I am only talking common-sense.  What is your income?”

“About two thousand pounds, but some of that half, perhaps more—­goes to the Society.”

“Exactly.  It would be impossible for you to marry Sybil on the whole of it, or twice the whole of it.”

“You want me then,” Brooks said, “to be reconciled to my father.  Yet you—­you yourself will not trust him.”

“I have not expressed any wish of the sort,” Lady Caroom said, kindly.  “I only wished to point out that as things are you were not in a position to ask Sybil to marry you, and therefore I want you to keep away from her.  I mean this kindly for both of you.  Of course if Sybil is absolutely in earnest, if the matter has gone too far, we must talk it all over again and see what is to be done.  But I want you to give her a chance.  Keep away for a time.  Your father may live for twenty-five years.  If your relations with him all that time continue as they are now, marriage with a girl brought up like Sybil would be an impossibility.”

Brooks was silent for several moments.  Then he looked up suddenly.

“Has Lady Sybil said anything to you—­which led you to speak to me?”

Lady Caroom shook her head.

“No.  She is very young, you know.  Frankly, I do not believe that she knows her own mind.  You have not spoken to her, of course?” “No!”

“And you will not?”

“I suppose,” Brooks said, “that I must not think of it.”

“You must give up thinking about her, of course,” Lady Caroom said, “until—­” Until what?

“Until you can ask her—­if ever you do ask her—­to marry you in your proper name.”

Brooks set his teeth and walked up and down the little room.

“That,” he said, “may be never.”

“Exactly,” Lady Caroom agreed.  “That is why I am suggesting that you do not see her so often.”

He stopped opposite her.

“Does he—­does Lord Arranmore know anything of this?”

She shook her head.

“Not from me.  He may have heard whispers.  To tell you the truth, I myself have been asked questions during the last few days.  You have been seen about a good deal with Sybil, and you are rather a mystery to people.  That is why I felt compelled to speak.”  He nodded.  “I see!”