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collections—a bit of china—a miniature—a print—Art.”
    “Mr. Standing, I must really ask you whether you are prepared to guarantee a small allowance to your cousin.”
    “Why should I?”
    Mr. Hale explained.
    “If you succeed to the late Mr. Standing’s fortune, you will be a very wealthy man.”
    Egbert shook his head again.
    “Not after everybody’s had their pickings,” he said.
    Mr. Hale understood him to refer to the death duties.
    “There will be a good deal left,” he said drily. “An allowance to your cousin—”
    For the third time Egbert shook his head.
    “Nothing doing. If there’s a will, or if it turns out that my uncle really married her mother, would she make me an allowance? Not much.”
    “The positions are hardly analogous.”
    “There’s nothing doing,” said Egbert—“not in the way of an allowance. Someone”—he ran his hand through his hair—“someone suggested we might get married. What do you think of that?”
    “It is rather a question of what Miss Standing would think of it.”
    “Why? It would put her all right, wouldn’t it? I thought it was rather a bright suggestion myself—puts us both right, don’t you see? If there’s a will or a certificate, it makes it all right for me. And if there isn’t a will or a certificate, it makes it all right for her. I thought it was quite a bright suggestion.”
    “It would certainly be a provision for Miss Standing.”
    “Or for me,” said Egbert.
    CHAPTER VII
    That evening Mr. Archie Millar fulfilled his deferred dinner engagement. He and Charles had a small table in a corner of the huge dining-room of The Luxe. Archie was in very good form—full of virtue, full of bonhomie, full of real affection for Charles.
    “I am The Virtuous Nephew out of Tracts for Tiny Tots. This is the seventeenth time this year that I have been summoned to my Aunt Elizabeth’s death-bed. She’s no end bucked because I always come. She isn’t goin’ to die for the next hundred years or so, but it keeps the old dear no end amused to go on sendin’ for me, and alterin’ her will, and givin’ good advice all round. She always tells me about all my little faults and failin’s, and I say ‘Righto’ and she’s no end bucked. Her doctor says it’s a splendid tonic. But I wish she didn’t always send for me when I’m dinin’ with a pal.”
    Charles was debating the question of just how much he was going to tell Archie. Margaret—hang Margaret! She did nothing but get in the way. He frowned and broke in on Archie’s flow of conversation with an abrupt question:
    “Tell me about the Pelhams. Are they still in 16 George Street?”
    Archie laid down his fish-fork.
    “Haven’t you heard?”
    “Not a word since I left.”
    “Mrs. Pelham died six months ago.”
    Charles was shocked. Margaret adored her mother. If he had sometimes thought she adored her too much, he admitted the temptation. Esther Pelham, beautiful, emotional, with a charm as potent as it was difficult to define, and never lacked adorers. Charles himself had bent the knee. Unfair, therefore, to complain if Margaret did so too. He was shocked, and showed it.
    “Poor old Freddy was awfully cut up. Bit of a bore Freddy Pelham, but everyone’s awfully sorry for him now— no end of a facer for him after takin’ her abroad and all—rotten for him comin’ home alone, poor chap.”
    “Did she die abroad?”
    Archie nodded.
    “Freddy took her off for a long voyage. No one thought she was really ill. Beastly for poor little Freddy comin’ home alone.”
    Charles told himself just what he thought of an idiotic reluctance to speak Margaret’s name. He spoke it now:
    “Wasn’t Margaret with them?”
    “No—it was an awful shock to her.”
    Charles prodded himself again.
    “She’s married, I suppose?”
    “Margaret! Who told you that yarn?”
    “No one. I just thought she’d be married.”
    “Well, she isn’t—or she wasn’t the last time I saw her, and that