“Yes, Clive?”

“Do you know what people are saying—­I mean the reason the Major made this proposition to Roger?”

She answered, in a quiet voice:  “I suppose, Clive, it has something to do with Elaine.”

“Yes, exactly!” exclaimed Clive.  “They say—­” But then he stopped.  He could not repeat it.  “Surely you don’t want that kind of talk, Sylvia?”

“Naturally, Clive, I’d prefer to escape that kind of talk, but my fear of it will not make me neglect the protection of my sister.”

“But Sylvia,” cried the boy, “you don’t understand about this!  A woman can’t understand about these things——­”

“You are mistaken, my dear cousin,” said Sylvia—­and her voice was firm and decisive.  “I do understand.”

“All right!” cried Clive, with sudden exasperation.  “But let me tell you this—­Celeste is going to have a hard time getting any other man to propose to her!”

“You mean, Clive, because so many of them are——?”

“Yes, if you must put it that way,” he said.

There was a pause, then Sylvia went on:  “Let us discuss the practical problem, Clive.  Don’t you think it would have been better if Roger, instead of going off and getting drunk, had set about getting himself cured?”

The other looked at her, with evident surprise.  “You mean in that case Celeste might marry him?”

“You say the boys are all alike, Clive; and we can’t turn our girls into nuns.  Why didn’t some of you fellows point that out to Roger?”

“The truth is,” said Clive, “we tried to.”  There was a little more cordiality in his manner, since Sylvia had shown such a unexpected amount of intelligence.

“Well?” she asked.  “What then?”

“Why, he wouldn’t listen to anything.”

“You mean—­because he was drunk?”

“No, we had him nearly sober.  But you see—­” And Clive paused for a moment, painfully embarrassed.  “The truth is, Roger had been to a doctor, and been told it might take him a year or two to get cured.”

“Clive!” she cried.  “Clive!  And you mean that in the face of that, he proposed to go on and marry?”

“Well, Sylvia, you see—­” And the young man hesitated still longer.  He was crimson with embarrassment, and suddenly he blurted out:  “The truth is, the doctor told him to marry.  That was the only way he’d ever get cured.”

Sylvia was almost speechless.  “Oh!  Oh!” she cried, “I can’t believe you!”

“That’s what the doctors tell you, Sylvia.  You don’t understand—­it’s just as I told you, a woman can’t understand.  It’s a question of a man’s nature——­”

“But Clive—­what about the wife and her health?  Has the wife no rights whatever?”

“The truth is, Sylvia, people don’t take this disease with such desperate seriousness.  You understand, it isn’t the one that everybody knows is dangerous.  It doesn’t do any real harm——­”