“Dear, all the things you are preparing to shout at me are quite useless; I know; I don’t imagine, I don’t forestall, I don’t predict.  I am not discounting any hopes of mine, because, Phil, I had not thought—­had not planned such a thing—­between you and Eileen—­I don’t know why.  But I had not; there was Suddy Gray—­a nice boy, perfectly qualified; and there were alternates more worldly, perhaps.  But I did not think of you; and that is what now amazes and humiliates me; because it was the obvious that I overlooked—­the most perfectly natural—­”

“Nina! you are madder than a March heiress!”

“Air your theories, Phil, then come back to realities.  The conditions remain; Eileen is certainly a little in love with you; and a little with her means something.  And you, evidently, have never harboured any serious intentions toward the child; I can see that, because you are the most transparent man I ever knew.  Now, the question is, what is to be done?”

“Done?  Good heavens!  Nothing, of course!  There’s nothing to do anything about!  Nina, you are the most credulous little matchmaker that ever—­”

“Oh, Phil, must I listen to all those fulminations before you come down to the plain fact?  And it’s plain to me as the nose on your countenance; and I don’t know what to do about it!  I certainly was a perfect fool to confide in you, for you are exhibiting the coolness and sagacity of a stampeded chicken.”

He laughed in spite of himself; then, realising a little what her confidence had meant, he turned a richer red and slowly lifted his fingers to his moustache, while his perplexed gray eyes began to narrow as though sun-dazzled.

“I am, of course, obliged to believe that you are mistaken,” he said; “a man cannot choose but believe in that manner. . . .  There is no very young girl—­nobody, old or young, whom I like as thoroughly as I do Eileen Erroll.  She knows it; so do you, Nina.  It is open and above-board. . . .  I should be very unhappy if anything marred or distorted our friendship. . . .  I am quite confident that nothing will.”

“In that frame of mind,” said his sister, smiling, “you are the healthiest companion in the world for her, for you will either cure her, or she you; and it is all right either way.”

“Certainly it will be all right,” he said confidently.

For a few moments he paced the room, reflective, quickening his pace all the while; and his sister watched him, silent in her indecision.

“I’m going up to see the kids,” he said abruptly.

The children, one and all, were in the Park; but Eileen was sewing in the nursery, and his sister did not call him back as he swung out of the room and up the stairs.  But when he had disappeared, Nina dropped into her chair, aware that she had played her best card prematurely; forced by Rosamund, who had just told her that rumour continued to be very busy coupling her brother’s name with the name of the woman who once had been his wife.