“Yes, I do happen to know; but still I am taking the liberty of disregarding the law if I do.  Then, what clergyman, of our faith, would marry me to anybody?”

“That, too, you know is not just, Phil.  You were innocent of wrong-doing; you were chivalrous enough to make no defence—­”

“Wrong-doing?  Nina, I was such a fool that I was innocent of sense enough to do either good or evil.  Yet I did do harm; there never was such a thing as a harmless fool.  But all I can do is to go and sin no more; yet there is little merit in good conduct if one hides in a hole too small to admit temptation.  No; there are laws civil and laws ecclesiastical; and sometimes I think a man is justified in repealing the form and retaining the substance of them, and remoulding it for purposes of self-government; as I do, now. . . .  Once, oppressed by form and theory, I told you that to remarry after divorce was a slap at civilisation. . . .  Which is true sometimes and sometimes not.  Common sense, not laws, must govern a man in that matter.  But if any motive except desire to be a decent citizen sways a self-punished man toward self-leniency, then is he unpardonable if he breaks those laws which truly were fashioned for such as he!”

“Saint Simon!  Saint Simon!  Will you please arise, stretch your limbs, and descend from your pillar?” said Nina; “because I am going to say something that is very, very serious; and very near my heart.”

“I remember,” he said; “it’s about Eileen, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is about Eileen.”

He waited; and again his sister’s eyes began restlessly searching his for something that she seemed unable to find.

“You make it a little difficult, Phil; I don’t believe I had better speak of it.”

“Why not?”

“Why, just because you ask me ‘why not?’ for example.”

“Is it anything that worries you about Eileen?”

“N-no; not exactly.  It is—­it may be a phase; and yet I know that if it is anything at all it is not a passing phase.  She is different from the majority, you see—­very intelligent, very direct.  She never forgets—­for example.  Her loyalty is quite remarkable, Phil.  She is very intense in her—­her beliefs—­the more so because she is unusually free from impulse—­even quite ignorant of the deeper emotions; or so I believed until—­until—­”

“Is she in love?” he asked.

“A little, Phil.”

“Does she admit it?” he demanded, unpleasantly astonished.

“She admits it in a dozen innocent ways to me who can understand her; but to herself she has not admitted it, I think—­could not admit it yet; because—­because—­”

“Who is it?” asked Selwyn; and there was in his voice the slightest undertone of a growl.

“Dear, shall I tell you?”

“Why not?”

“Because—­because—­Phil, I think that our pretty Eileen is a little in love with—­you.”

He straightened out to his full height, scarlet to the temples; she dropped her linked fingers in her lap, gazing at him almost sadly.