They were a small party at dinner, for there remained but Hilda Forest to complete the number. She had only that afternoon returned to town. Mrs. Forest was dining out, to Chris's unfeigned relief. For Chris was in high spirits that night, and only in her aunt's absence could she give them full vent.
But, if gay, she was also provokingly elusive. Mordaunt had never seen her so effervescent, so sublimely inconsequent, or so naïvely bewitching as she was throughout the meal. Rupert, reckless and débonnaire, encouraged her wild mood. As his youngest brother expressed it, he and Chris 'generally ran amok' when they got together. And Hilda, the sedate, rather pensive daughter of the house, was far too gentle to restrain them.
It was impossible to hold aloof from such light-hearted merry-making, and Mordaunt went with the tide. Perhaps instinct warned him that it was the surest way to overcome that barrier of shyness, unacknowledged but none the less existent, that kept him still a stranger to his little fiancée's confidence. Her dainty daring notwithstanding, he was aware of the fact that she was yet half afraid of him, though when he came to seek the cause of this he was utterly at a loss.
When he and Rupert were left alone together after dinner, they were already far advanced upon the road to intimacy. It was the result of his deliberate intention; for though a girl might keep him outside her inner sanctuary, it seldom happened in the world of men that Trevor Mordaunt could not obtain a free pass whithersoever he cared to go.
Rupert tossed aside his gaiety with characteristic suddenness almost as soon as the door had closed upon his sister and cousin.
"I suppose you want to get to business," he said abruptly. "I'm ready when you are."
Mordaunt moved into an easy-chair. "Yes, I want to make a suggestion," he said deliberately. "But it is not a matter that you and I can carry through single-handed. I want to talk about it, that's all."
Rupert, his elbows on the table, nodded and stared rather gloomily into his coffee-cup. "I suppose it'll take about a year to fix it up. Anything with a lawyer in it does."
Mordaunt watched him through his cigarette smoke for a few seconds in silence, until in fact with a slight movement of impatience Rupert turned.
"I'm no good at fencing," he said, rather irritably. "You want Kellerton
Old Park, Chris tells me. Have you seen it?"