"But if it is true?"
"Miss Vincent may have been engaged before—and she may have found it to be a mistake. Anyhow, one may always allow for exaggeration. Your brother must find out for himself. Try to forget it, dear. No one can see the two together without seeing how happy they are."
"Would Rob be happy if he thought this was true—if he were really the third?"
"We have nothing whatever to do with that!" Then Bee began talking about Wratt-Wrothesley and the house-party there. "Everybody admired Miss Vincent," she said. "And everybody liked your brother. My aunts were so grateful to him for what he did in the summer, when Mr. Ivor had that terrible accident. He is one of their greatest friends; and but for your brother, he never could have come through it."
"But it was partly you too, Bee."
"Oh, mine was the most commonplace help. I just looked through a telescope and used ordinary sense. But Mr. Royston—think what it meant for him to spend the whole night on those rocks, in such awful cold—waiting for the morning. We all felt that he was a real hero."
"I suppose Mr. Ivor wasn't at Wratt-Wrothesley, too, when you were all there."
"No." Bee spoke quietly, without the shadow of a sign that it meant anything to her. "My aunts did invite him, but he said he could not spare the time just then. He was going a little later."
[CHAPTER XVII]
ABOUT TRUE SERVICE