"If you think you're going to hear a tale of love you'll be disappointed. Nothing of the sort. It's a matter of highway robbery, if it's anything."
Karri began to laugh.
"Oh, come, Bram! This is not like you!"
Neither was it. If Bramham made alms and oblations on strange altars, he was the last man to talk about it afterwards, or sigh over the stub-end of his cheque-book even with his closest friend. At this time, however, he was too much taken up with his grievances to defend his principles to Carson.
"I don't say the girl isn't good looking," he now interpolated, as one who wishes to be quite fair and square; "and she may be a good girl, for all I know," he added doubtfully.
Carson grinned.
"Any way, I'm quite sure the other girl is straight."
"Great God of War! Are there two?"
"What a fellow you are, Carson!" said Bramham peevishly. "Of course there are two, but the other one is quite different—English, I think; anyway, she's no Colonial. I don't know what to make of it, to tell you the truth, Karri. She's a friend of that Cornell girl and that's against her; yet she looks good——"
"Do you mean that she is unlovely?" asked Carson with a wry smile.