"I am always at your service, Miss Alice."
"That is so good of you. But there is one warning that I have to give you. Don't fall in love with Edith. She is already engaged, but the greatest little flirt in existence."
"I am not susceptible, Miss Alice. If I had been——"
A look completed the sentence, a look that brought the quick color to the pretty, round cheeks, which Neil Lowell was not slow to see.
The girl kissed her father and hurried from the room. The old man glanced from Lowell to the closed door, and back again, in much surprise.
"Neil," he said, after a long, thoughtful pause, "that is a subject upon which jests are not admissible."
"I understand you, sir, and I beg that you will feel no anxiety whatever upon that point. I am too young to fear."
"No, you are not. Your face is unusually handsome, and—— Remember, boy, I do not speak for my daughter's sake alone, but yours as well."
"I made up my mind, Mr. Pryor, some time ago, and I shall keep to my resolution, that I shall never marry. I beg that you will feel no concern for either me or—for her. Will you excuse me? We neither of us have much time in which to dress for dinner."
Andrew Pryor nodded a consent, and with infinite amusement in his heart, and amusement that was to be piteously short-lived, Neil Lowell sought his room to dress for that dinner that was to linger long in his memory.