Lilian Cromarty jumped. There was something very formidable in her brother's voice.
"My dear Ned, don't frighten me! Eat me if you like, but eat me quietly. I didn't say I believed the story."
"I hope not," he said in the same grim tone, "but do you mean to say it doesn't strike you as the damnedest slander ever spread?"
"Between myself I hadn't called it the 'damnedest' anything. But how do I know whether it's a slander?"
"You actually think it might conceivably be true?"
She shrugged her well-gowned shoulders.
"I never could stand Malcolm Cromarty—a conceited little jackanapes. He hasn't a penny and he was head over ears in debt."
It was his turn to start.
"Was he?"
"Oh, rather! Didn't you know? Owed money everywhere."