got, examined on arrival." The company expressed hearty approval of the plan, and it was easy to see, in the case of the ladies at least, that Friend Othniel's sagacity had won him a much-improved position in their estimation. The waiter now came bustling in and out of the room, and Mrs. Mackintosh drew Cecil apart into the embrasure of a window. "You mustn't think I'm too hard on you, young man," she said, "though I can talk like a house afire when I once get r'iled. I[Pg 87] know you didn't mean to get us into this scrape. You're a good-hearted chap, or you wouldn't have given us all a breakfast when you didn't need to, and I want you to understand that I'll stand by you whatever happens. I've taken a real liking to you, because you can look me straight in the eye, and I know you're worth a dozen of those chaps one sees hanging round a theatre; and if you behave yourself nicely, you won't find you've got a better friend than Betsy Mackintosh." And she squeezed his hand with an honest fervour that many a man might have envied. [Pg 87] Cecil thanked her for her confidence in him, and turned to have a few words with Miss Arminster, who had been constantly in his mind. When she had admitted to the Justice of the Peace that she was a married woman, he felt as if somebody had poured a pitcher of ice-water down his back. Of course he hardly considered his sentiment for her as serious, but he was at the age when a young man feels it a personal grievance if he discovers that a pretty girl is married. Indeed, the fact that[Pg 88] the little actress had been so blind to her own interests as not to keep her heart and hand free till he came along first caused him to realise how hard he was hit. [Pg 88] "I do hope you've not been too much fatigued?" he said, sitting down beside her. "Oh, you mustn't bother about that," she replied, raising her eyes to his in a decidedly disconcerting manner. "I'm afraid you must have thought me very selfish and ungrateful for seeming to care so much about my own appearance and so little about all you've done for me." "Oh, don't speak of that," he protested. "But I must speak of it," she insisted. "I can't begin to tell you how I appreciated it. It was plucky and just splendid, and some day or other I want you to take me out driving again, in another
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