his Cousin Eleanor as a prim young person, with sharp elbows and a pinched nose and stringy hair. She would be lifeless and oppressively good-mannered, he felt certain. All the ill success of the last three days seemed to be behind his sudden determination to have none [15]of her. But Cousin Jasper, having once conceived the idea, was not to be gainsaid.

[15]

"No, I haven't been doing the proper thing for you. We will have Eleanor over to lunch to-morrow and you two shall go with Jennings in the car to fetch her. Don't protest, it won't be any trouble."

Later, as they went upstairs, Janet pleaded and argued with a thunderously rebellious Oliver who vowed and insisted that he would have no unknown female cousin thrust upon him.

"It is all right for you, Janet," he insisted, "but I won't have Cousin Jasper arranging any such thing for me. When I told him I didn't like girls, he should have listened. No, I don't care if it is wrong, I am going to tell him, to-morrow, just what I think."

Janet shook her brown, curly head in despair.

"I believe you will have to do what he says, in the end," she declared.

The next morning, at breakfast time, Oliver had not relented, for a night haunted by visions of this unknown cousin had in no way added to his peace of mind.

"I have been thinking about that girl you spoke about," he began, looking across the table and over the wide bowl of sweet peas to fix his cousin with a glance of firm determination, "and I don't really care to meet her. Janet can go to fetch her, but—you mustn't expect—I don't know how——"

His defense broke down and Cousin Jasper was ill-advised enough to laugh.

[16]"Stuff and nonsense," he said. "If you are afraid of girls it is time you got over it. I have telephoned Eleanor already, but she couldn't come." Oliver brightened, but relapsed, the next moment, into deeper gloom than ever. "She said that she would be at home later in the afternoon, so you and Janet are to go over and call on her. I have ordered the motor for three o'clock."

[16]

It was Janet's suppressed giggle that added the last spark to Oliver's kindling anger. He was fond of his Cousin Jasper, he was troubled concerning him, and disturbed by the haunting feeling that something was wrong 

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