"Do you want a plain statement of facts? Well, my dear, you know them as well as I do, though perhaps you do not know the light in which they present themselves to me. We three, you and Francis and I, were left to earn our own living at a somewhat early age. Francis became a banker's clerk, and you took to literature and governessing and general popularity. By a very clever stroke you managed to induce Professor Romaine to marry you. He was fifty and you were twenty-four. You did very well for yourself—twisted him round your little finger, and got him to leave you all his money; but really I do not see how this could be said to be for my sake."
"Then you are very ungrateful, Oliver. You were a boy of fourteen when I married, and what would you have done but for Mr. Romaine and myself?"
"You forget, my dear," said Oliver, smoothly, "that I was never exactly dependent on you for a livelihood. I took scholarships at school and college, and there was a certain sum of money invested in the Funds for my other expenses. It was perhaps not a large sum, but it was enough. I have to thank you for some very pleasant weeks at your house during the holidays; but there was really no necessity for you to marry Peter Romaine in order to provide for my holidays."
She winced under his tone of banter, but did not speak. She seemed resolved to let him say what he liked. Rosalind Romaine might not be perfect in all relations of life, but she was certainly a good sister.
"When a few years had elapsed," her brother went on, in a light narrative tone, "I'll grant that Romaine was of considerable service to us. He got Francis out of several scrapes, and he shoved me into a Government office, where the duties are not particularly onerous. Oh, yes, I owe some thanks to Romaine."
"And none to me for marrying him?"
Oliver laughed. "My dear Rosy," he said, "I have mentioned before that I consider you married him to please yourself."
She shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing more.
"Romaine became useful to me, of course," said Oliver, reflectively; "and then came the first extraordinary hitch. We met the Brookes—how many years ago—nearly twelve, I suppose; and you formed a gushing friendship with Lady Alice Brooke and her husband, especially with her husband."
"Why do you rake up these old stories?"