He leaned forward eagerly.  “That’s just it.  A nice enough little thing!  Nothing in the world to be said against her.  While Daphne—­ Miss Tepping, I mean—­” His silence was ecstatic.

I examined the photograph still more closely.  It displayed a lady of twenty or thereabouts, with a weak face, small, vacant features, a feeble chin, a good-humoured, simple mouth, and a wealth of golden hair that seemed to strike a keynote.

“In the theatrical profession?” I inquired at last, looking up.

He hesitated.  “Well, not exactly,” he answered.

I pursed my lips and blew a ring.  “Music-hall stage?” I went on, dubiously.

He nodded.  “But a girl is not necessarily any the less a lady because she sings at a music-hall,” he added, with warmth, displaying an evident desire to be just to his betrothed, however much he admired Daphne.

“Certainly not,” I admitted.  “A lady is a lady; no occupation can in itself unladify her. . . .  But on the music-hall stage, the odds, one must admit, are on the whole against her.”

“Now, there you show prejudice!”

“One may be quite unprejudiced,” I answered, “and yet allow that connection with the music-halls does not, as such, afford clear proof that a girl is a compound of all the virtues.”

“I think she’s a good girl,” he retorted, slowly.

“Then why do you want to throw her over?” I inquired.

“I don’t.  That’s just it.  On the contrary, I mean to keep my word and marry her.”

“In order to keep your word?” I suggested.

He nodded.  “Precisely.  It is a point of honour.”

“That’s a poor ground of marriage,” I went on.  “Mind, I don’t want for a moment to influence you, as Daphne’s cousin.  I want to get at the truth of the situation.  I don’t even know what Daphne thinks of you.  But you promised me a clean breast.  Be a man and bare it.”

He bared it instantly.  “I thought I was in love with this girl, you see,” he went on, “till I saw Miss Tepping.”

“That makes a difference,” I admitted.

“And I couldn’t bear to break her heart.”

“Heaven forbid!” I cried.  “It is the one unpardonable sin.  Better anything than that.”  Then I grew practical.  “Father’s consent?”

“My father’s?  Is it likely?  He expects me to marry into some distinguished English family.”

I hummed a moment.  “Well, out with it!” I exclaimed, pointing my cigar at him.

He leaned back in his chair and told me the whole story.  A pretty girl; golden hair; introduced to her by a friend; nice, simple little thing; mind and heart above the irregular stage on to which she had been driven by poverty alone; father dead; mother in reduced circumstances.  “To keep the home together, poor Sissie decided—­”

“Precisely so,” I murmured, knocking off my ash.  “The usual self-sacrifice!  Case quite normal!  Everything en regle!”