"You're white as a sheet. You ought to take more care of yourself, my dear fellow. I do Sandow's exercises every morning and evening. And I take a grain of calomel once a week. You look liverish. I find that my mind does not work properly unless my body is in tiptop condition. What were we talking of? Oh, yes—Betty Kirtling. Do you know that Harry Kirtling has proposed about five times—generally out hunting? But she laughs at him. She cried in the Dean's garden."
"Ah?" said Mark softly.
"She won't laugh or cry when the right man speaks, and if you are he the sooner you speak the better. She's an enchantress," Archie concluded, "and her money would come in very handy—wouldn't it?"
"Confound her money!" said Mark violently.
CHAPTER XV
APHRODITE SMILES AND FROWNS
When Betty met Mark just before dinner the story of the Bagshots was told briefly.
"Is that why you look so discouraged?" she whispered.
He laughed, not quite naturally.
"Surely to—to me, you may show your true feelings. Or do you count me a fair-weather friend?"