"Nothing to make you fly into a temper, Harry," Lancaster answered, gravely. "Nothing but what is done every day by idle, rich men—winning an innocent, fresh young heart in a careless flirtation, and then leaving it to break."
De Vere dropped his fine Havana into the waves and looked around.
"Look here, Lancaster," he said, "tell me one thing. Do you want Miss West for yourself?"
"I don't understand you," haughtily, with a hot flush mounting to his brow.
"I mean you are warning me off because you're in love with the little thing yourself? Do you want to win her—to make her my lady?"
"What then?" inquired Lancaster, moodily.
"Why, then, I only want an equal chance with you, that's all—a fair field and no favor."
They gazed at each other in silence a moment. Lancaster said then, with something like surprise:
"Are you in earnest?"
"Never more so in my life."