Miss Clifford shook her head.
"I never studied Greek," she said, "but I am sure you are unjust."
Roger gave a rapturous chuckle and squeezed her plump hand in his.
"Never mind. 'Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood'—you know that quotation, don't you?"
"Certainly, though I scarcely see how it applies to Thérèse."
"It doesn't," retorted Roger, laughing anew. Then more seriously, "You spoke of Arthur Holliday. Is he still on the tapis?"
"Oh, we see a good deal of him, although I believe he's considering a position that's been offered him in the Argentine. He came recently to ask Charles's advice about accepting it."
"The Argentine! He must have pulled a wonderful bluff with someone."
"Yes! I've never known him do anything serious. Yet he always appears to have money. He runs a car, dresses well and lives at a first-rate hotel."
"One of Life's little mysteries," commented the young man with a shake of the head. "I would like to know how these gentlemen of leisure manage. I always have to pay my hotel hills, or I would be put out, but not these fellows. Oh, no! There's some magic about them—no known means of support, yet they live like princes. There's one in Manchester now—he was up at Cambridge with me, I regret to say. The fact's cost me a good deal first and last. He comes regularly to borrow money and keeps a taxi ticking up outside for an hour while he's waiting to see me. Oh, he's to the manor born, just like Arthur Holliday. I take off my hat to them both."