She took the question literally and with a little youthful timidity.  “But these mixed races never attain to anything, do they?  I thought that was understood.  But,” she added with feminine quickness, “and I suppose it’s again only a personal argument, you wouldn’t like your sister to have married an Indian, would you?”

The irony of the situation had reached its climax to Peter.  It didn’t seem to be his voice that said, “I can answer by an argument still more personal.  I have even thought myself of marrying an Indian woman.”

It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but he was desperate.  It seemed to him that in a moment more he would have told her his whole secret.  But the young girl drew back from him with a slight start of surprise.  There may have been something in the tone of his voice and in his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke.  But it was only for a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common sense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue.  “But that,” she said with quick mischievousness, “would be a sacrifice taken in the interest of these people, don’t you see; and being a sacrifice, it’s no argument.”

Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so innocent and delightful in the youthful triumph of this red-lipped logician, that he was forced to smile.  I have said that his smile was rare and fascinating, a concession wrung from his dark face and calm beardless lips that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and not altogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she had approached with such innocent fearlessness.  There was a new light in her eyes, a fresher color in her cheeks as she turned her face—­she knew not why—­away from him.  But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them from the fort.  And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time in her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start.

“Oh, here’s Reggy coming to look for me.  I’d quite forgotten, but I’m so glad.  I want you to know my brother Reggy.  He was always so sorry he missed you at the Grange.”

The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered up bestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter’s horse than upon Peter, but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him.  Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of one was from temperament and the other from education.  Nevertheless Lord Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there, and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland when Atherly was at the Grange.  That none of them had ever suspected till they came