“Look here,” said Max.  “I know Chris. She will keep you dangling for the next ten years if you will put up with it.  If you want to be married soon, you will have to assert yourself.”

Mordaunt was silent.

Max waited.  Below them Chris flashed suddenly into view, darting with a butterfly grace of movement to the rescue of her pet.

Abruptly Mordaunt spoke.  “I sometimes wonder if she is too young to be married.”

“What?” Max removed his cigarette and stared at him.  “She is as old as I am!”

Mordaunt looked back, faintly smiling.  “Yes, I know.  But—­well, that’s no argument, is it?”

“I suppose not.  All the same”—­Max leaned back nonchalantly against the window-frame—­“if you mean to wait till she grows up, you’ll wait a precious long time, and she will probably run away with another fellow while you are thinking about it.”

Mordaunt clapped a restraining hand on his shoulder.  “My friend,” he said, “I don’t permit that sort of thing to be said of Chris.”

Maxwell’s green eyes twinkled.  “You don’t, eh?  That’s rather decent of you.  But, you know, there is such a thing as being too trusting.  And the family of Wyndham are not conspicuously famous for their honourable scruples.  Now, Chris is as much a Wyndham as the rest of us, and—­I’m going to say it whether you like it or not, it’s the truth also—­she is a deal more likely to keep out of mischief if she marries young.  You are no fool by the look of you.  You know there is reason in what I say.”

“You have said enough,” Mordaunt said, with a touch of sternness.

“All right.  The subject is closed.  But—­just tell me this.  Do you—­or do you not—­want to marry her before the summer is over?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to know.”

“Well”—­Mordaunt’s eyes studied him for a few seconds—­“it is an unnecessary question.”

“Because I know the answer?” questioned Max.

“Exactly.”

“Very well.”  He straightened himself with a smile.  “I think I can manage that for you.”

“Wait!” Mordaunt said.  “You mean well, but—­I would rather you didn’t attempt it.  I would rather that Chris were left to settle this matter for herself.”

“So she will.  I know what I’m about, bless your heart!  Chris always asks my advice and generally takes it.  She will marry you all right before the end of the season.  You leave it to me.”

He turned from the window with the words, still smiling.  “Give me five minutes alone with her,” he said.

And Mordaunt, though more than half against his will, yielded the point, and let him go.

They lunched in the old oak-beamed dining-room—­a meal presided over by Max, who played the host with a half-mocking air, while Chris, still eager upon the renovations, poured out plans, practicable and otherwise, for her fiance’s consideration.