Christine caught her breath.

“Not—­Jimmy?” she asked.

“No—­Horace.  He has a young brother named Jimmy, though—­a disrespectful young scamp, who always called Horace ’the Great Horatio.’  You don’t happen to know them, I suppose?”

Christine had flushed scarlet.

“He is my husband,” she said in a whisper.

“Your—­husband!” Kettering stared at her with amazed eyes, then suddenly he held our his hand.  “That makes us quite old friends, then, doesn’t it?” he said with change of voice.  “I have known Horace Challoner all my life; as a matter of fact, I was with him all last summer in Australia.  I have been home myself only a few weeks.”

Christine did not know what to say.  She knew that this man must be wondering where Jimmy was; that it was more than probable that he would write to the Great Horatio and inform him of their chance meeting, and of anything else which he might discover about her mistaken marriage.

“I don’t think Horace knows that his brother is married, does he?” the man said again, Christine raised her eyes.

“We’ve only been married ten days,” she said tremulously.

“Is that so?  Then I am not too late to offer you my most sincere congratulations, and to wish you every happiness.”  He took her hand in a kindly grip.

Christine tried to thank him, but somehow she seemed to have lost her voice.  She moved on across the hall into the dining-room, where there was a cheery fire burning and tea laid.

“You will have some tea with me,” she said.  “And then afterwards I will show you over the house—­if you really want to see it?” She looked up at him wistfully.  “I should like you to have it, I think,” she told him hesitatingly.  “If it has got to be sold, I should like to know that somebody—­nice—­has bought it.”

“Thank you.”  He stood back to the fire, watching her as she poured out the tea.

Married—­this child!  It seemed so absurd.  She looked about seventeen.

Suddenly: 

“And where is Jimmy?” he asked her abruptly.  “I wonder if he would remember me!  Hardly, I expect; it’s a great many years since we met.”

Christine had been expecting the question; she kept her face averted as she answered: 

“Jimmy is in London; he saw me off this morning.  He—­he isn’t able to come down just yet.”

There was a little silence.

“I see,” said Kettering.  Only ten days married, and not able to come down.  Jimmy had never done an hour’s work in his life, so far as Kettering could remember.  He knew quite well that he was living on an allowance from his brother; it seemed a curious sort of situation altogether.

He took his tea from Christine’s hands.  He noticed that they trembled a little, as if she were very nervous, he tried to put her at her ease; he spoke no more of Jimmy.

“I wonder what has happened to your friend?” he said cheerily.  “I dare say she will turn up here directly.”