"I don't think that fierce-eyed girl would care for a marriage of the comrade sort, Hench. She wants love of the most pronounced and romantic kind, and that kind she is getting from Bracken. He worships her, and will carry off the prize if all you can give is cautious admiration."
"It's none of your business, anyway," fumed the big man.
"No. I admit that! But suppose I make it my business by asking Madame Alpenny for her daughter's hand. She believes me to be rich and----"
"And you are not. Come, be honest."
Spruce saw that he had overshot the mark and retreated dexterously. "I have already been honest, as I told you that I was not a millionaire but only well off. Anyhow, I am a better husband for Zara so far as money is concerned than you or that bounder."
"But hang it, man, you can't love her. You've only known her a week."
"I never said that I did love her, or could possibly come to love her. Still, Zara is handsome and clever, so why shouldn't I make her my comrade-wife, since you suggested the same kind of half-baked alliance with yourself."
"Look here, Spruce," stated the other very seriously, and irritated by the nimble wit of his schoolfellow, "you have proved yourself to be a decent sort by offering to help me. For that offer I thank you, and because of it I am willing that we should be friends. But if you make love to Zara we are sure to quarrel."
"Aren't you rather a dog-in-the-manger, Hench?"
"No. I admire the girl."
"She wants love, which you evidently can't give her," retorted Spruce in an emphatic manner. "Now, if I can love her----"
"You said that she wasn't your sort."
"She isn't. Still, she is handsome, and one might pick up a worse wife."
"But not a worse mother-in-law. So far as I am concerned it doesn't matter, as I have neither kith nor kin to my knowledge, and, moreover, I am a vagabond upon the face of the earth. But with your family connections and position and money, the marriage would not be a success, seeing that it entails your taking Madame Alpenny to the West End. There she would scarcely do you credit."
Spruce rocked with laughter, and wondered what Hench would say if he knew the true position of affairs which had been so carefully withheld from him. "I give in, old fellow," he said, wiping his eyes with a mauve silk handkerchief and wafting a perfume about the room. "I was only codding you. I don't want to marry the girl. But Bracken does."
"And so do I," rejoined Hench tartly.
"H'm! I'm not so sure of that. Yours is a cold-blooded wooing. The girl asks you for the bread of love and you give her the stone of admiration."
"She doesn't ask me for love," said the tall young man with a sigh. "I am not so blind but what I can see that she loves Bracken."
"Then why don't you sheer off?"
"I don't like any man to get the better of me."
"There speaks the buccaneer, the cave-man, the prehistoric grabber. Lord! what a weird state of things, and how simple you are, Hench, to place all your cards on the table. I can teach you a thing or two."
"I am quite sure you can," said Hench dryly, and disliking the wit of this effeminate little creature, which was so extremely keen; "but I go my own way, thank you, and dree my own weird. It is probable that I will ask Madame Alpenny if I can marry Zara, and if Zara is agreeable----"
"Which by your own showing she won't be," put in Spruce parenthetically.
"----I'll marry her. If not, I'll go away and let Bracken make her his wife."
Spruce rose with a yawn. "I fancy Madame Alpenny will have a word or two to say to that, my dear fellow. Why don't you skip now?"
"Because I admire Zara and mean to give her the chance of accepting or rejecting me," said Hench doggedly. "Also, I can't leave London for a few weeks, as I have to interview my father's lawyers."
"What about?"
"I can't tell you. My father left certain papers with his lawyers which were to be given to me when I attained the age of twenty-five. My birthday arrives shortly, and then I'll see what is to be done."
"It sounds like a mystery," yawned Spruce, apparently in a listless manner, but secretly all agog to learn what the lawyers of his friend knew; "Madame Alpenny says you are a mystery."
"Me!" Hench laughed scornfully; "why, there's nothing mysterious about me. As you said just now, I am a simple person who places all his cards on the table."
"Yes"--Spruce nodded--"more fool you. Now, if you will only allow that old woman to think that there really is a mystery connected with you--and there seems to be so far as this legal interview is concerned--she may give you a chance of becoming her daughter's husband."
"Perhaps! But why does she think me a mystery?"
"I can't tell you. She was very vague about the matter. She declares that she has seen you somewhere and that you have a history."
"History be hanged. My father had sufficient money to travel about and put me to school at Winchester. When I left I joined him, and we went through Europe to this place and that until he died and was buried in Paris. What mystery is there about that?"
"None. But your family----?"
"I haven't got any save my father, who is dead. And he told me very little about himself or his belongings. We are a Welsh family, I believe."
"Hench isn't a Welsh name."
"Owain is, anyhow, and the spelling is old Welsh," retorted the other.
"True. We used to rag you about the spelling at school. Well, with such a name as that, you might find out the truth about your family."
"I'm not curious."
"You should be then, as I would be if I were in your shoes. For all you know there may be a title and money waiting for you."
"Oh, rubbish! Well, you can tell Madame Alpenny what I have told you. No. On second thoughts, I'll tell her myself. She and her mystery, indeed!" and with a scornful nod Hench left the bleak smoking-room.
Spruce reflected that Hench was a simpleton to be so frank about his private affairs, and had not changed, so far as trusting people went, since his school-days. "Also there is a mystery," he mused. "I'll search it out."
CHAPTER III
MAN PROPOSES
Everyone, without exception, was glad that Hench had returned, for he appeared to be a favourite with all. And not the least pleased to see him was the boy Simon Jedd, commonly called "Bottles." He was a freckled, red-haired, laughing youngster of fifteen, with a wide mouth and a snub nose, not by any manner of means handsome, but genial and cheerful and extremely honest. He helped Amelia with the house-work, ran errands, waited at table, cleaned the boots of the paying guests, and earned his scanty wages by making himself uncommonly useful on all and every occasion. But being a restless youth, and much given at odd moments to reading books of highly-coloured adventure in the form of penny stories, he had a soul above his drudgery, and longed with all his heart to face dangers of the most pronounced kind. Such a lad was bound to have some sort of actual hero to worship and adore.
In Hench, Bottles saw exactly the pioneering type, which was his ideal of perfect manhood, and he looked upon the young man as the model of all the virtues which most appealed to him. This being the case, he never could do enough to prove his devotion. No bed was so well made as that of Hench; no room was kept so spotlessly clean, and no boots were so highly polished. Half amused and half touched