“What did I tell you?” said Billy’s voice at his shoulder.  “But you might have said that chap belonged to you.  How was I to know?”

“Oh, quite so,” said Scott.  “Pray don’t apologize!  He doesn’t belong to me either.  It is I who belong to him.”

Billy’s green eyes twinkled appreciatively.  “You’re his brother, aren’t you?”

Scott looked at him.  “Now how on earth did you know that?”

He looked back with his frank, engaging grin.  “Oh, there’s the same hang about you.  I can’t tell you what it is.  Dinah would know directly.  You’d better ask her.”

“I don’t happen to have the pleasure of your sister’s acquaintance,” observed Scott, with his quiet smile.

“Oh, I’ll soon introduce you if that’s what you want,” said Billy.  “Come along!  There she is now, just crossing the road.  By the way, I don’t think you told me your name.”

“My name is Studley—­Scott Studley, Stumpy to my friends,” said Scott, in his whimsical, rather weary fashion.

Billy laughed.  “You’re a sport,” he said.  “When I know you a bit better, I shall remember that.  Hi, Dinah!  What a deuce of a time you’ve been.  This is Mr. Studley, and he saw you at the window without anything on.”

“I’m sure he didn’t!  Billy, how dare you?” Dinah’s brown face burned an indignant red; she looked at Scott with instant hostility.

“Oh, please!” he protested mildly.  “That’s not quite fair on me.”

“Serves you right,” declared Billy with malicious delight.  “You played me a shabby trick, you know.”

Dinah’s brow cleared.  She smiled upon Scott.  “Isn’t he a horrid little pig?  How do you do?  Isn’t it a ripping day?  It makes you want to climb, doesn’t it?  I wish I’d got an alpenstock.”

“Can’t you get one anywhere?” asked Scott.  “I thought they were always to be had.”

“Yes, but they cost money,” sighed Dinah.  “And I haven’t got any.  It doesn’t really matter though.  There are lots of other things to do.  Are you keen on luging?  I am.”

Her bright eyes smiled into his with the utmost friendliness, and he knew that she would not commit Billy’s mistake and ask him if he skated.

Her smile was infectious.  The charm of it lingered after it had passed.  Her eyes were green like Billy’s, only softer.  They had a great deal of sweetness in them, and a spice—­just a spice of devilry as well.  The rest of the face would have been quite unremarkable, but the laughter-loving mouth and pointed chin wholly redeemed it from the commonplace.  She was a little brown thing like a woodland creature, and her dainty air and quick ways put Scott irresistibly in mind of a pert robin.

In reply to her question he told her that he had arrived only the night before.  “And I am quite a tyro,” he added.  “I have been watching the luging on that slope, and thanking all the stars that control my destiny that I wasn’t there.”