She laughed too.  She got in beside him and tucked the rug round her warmly.

“How long will it take to get home?” she asked.  She seemed all at once conscious of the growing dusk, conscious, too, of anxiety to get back to Gladys.  She was a little afraid of this man, though she would not admit it even to herself.

“We ought to be home in an hour,” he said.  He started the engine.

The car ran smoothly for a mile or two.  Christine began to feel sleepy.  Kettering did not talk much, and the fresh evening air on her face was soothing and pleasant.  She closed her eyes.

Presently when Kettering spoke to her he got no answer; he turned a little in his seat and looked down at her, but her head was drooping forward and he could not see her face.

“Christine.”  He spoke her name sharply, then suddenly he smiled; she was asleep.

He moved so that her head rested against his arm; he slowed the car down a little.

Kettering was not a young man, his fortieth birthday had been several years a thing of the past, but all his life afterwards he looked back on that drive home to Upton House as the happiest hour he had ever known, with Christine’s little head resting on his arm and the grey twilight all about them.  When they were half a mile from home he roused her gently.  She sat up with a start, rubbing sleepy eyes.

“Oh! where are we?” He laid his hand on hers for a moment.

“You’ve been asleep.  We’re nearly home.”

He turned in at the drive of Upton House.  He let her get out of the car unassisted.

Gladys was at the door; her eyes were anxious.

“I thought you must have had an accident,” she said.  She caught Christine’s hand.  “You’re fearfully late.”

“We had tea at Heston,” Christine said.  She ran into the house.

Kettering looked at the elder girl.

“You would not come,” he said.  “Don’t you care for motoring?”

“No.”  She came down the steps and stood beside him.  “Mr. Kettering, may I say something?”

He looked faintly surprised.

“May you!  Why, of course!”

“You will be angry—­you will be very angry, I am afraid,” she said.  “But—­but I can’t help it.”

“Angry!  What do you mean?”

There was a moment’s silence, then: 

“Well,” said Kettering rather curtly.

She flushed, but her eyes did not fall.

“Mr. Kettering, if you are a gentleman, and I know you are, you will never come here again,” she said urgently.

A little wave of crimson surged under Kettering’s brown skin, but his eyes did not fall; there was a short silence, then he laughed—­rather mirthlessly.

“And if I am not the gentleman you so very kindly seem to believe me,” he said constrainedly.

Gladys Leighton came a little closer to him; she laid her hand on his arm.