"Some one else? Do you know whom?" Brooks asked.
"If you do not know," Lady Caroom answered, "I do not."
Brooks threw aside all attempt at disguise. He looked across at Lady
Caroom, and his eyes were very bright.
"I have never believed," he said, "that Sybil would be likely to care for me. I can scarcely believe it now."
Lady Caroom hesitated.
"In any case," she said, "could you ask her to marry you? You must see that as things are it would be impossible!"
"Impossible!" he muttered. "Impossible!"
"Of course," she answered, briskly. "You must be a man of the world enough to know that. You could not ask a girl in Sybil's position to share a borrowed name, nor would the other conditions permit of your marrying her. That is why I want to talk to you."
"Well?"
"Is there any immediate chance of your reconciliation with the Marquis of Arranmore?"