"No."

"Then take my advice--and consult him. You needn't mention names. You
can say it's the case of a friend."

The idea was a new one and a good one. Geoffrey looked longingly toward
the door. Eager to make Sir Patrick his innocent accomplice on the
spot, he made a second attempt to leave the library; and made it for the
second time in vain. Arnold had more unwelcome inquiries to make, and
more advice to give unasked.

"How have you arranged about meeting Miss Silvester?" he went on. "You
can't go to the hotel in the character of her husband. I have prevented
that. Where else are you to meet her? She is all alone; she must be
weary of waiting, poor thing. Can you manage matters so as to see her
to-day?"

After staring hard at Arnold while he was speaking, Geoffrey burst out
laughing when he had done. A disinterested anxiety for the welfare of
another person was one of those refinements of feeling which a muscular
education had not fitted him to understand.

"I say, old boy," he burst out, "you seem to take an extraordinary
interest in Miss Silvester! You haven't fallen in love with her
yourself--have you?"

"Come! come!" said Arnold, seriously. "Neither she nor I deserve to
be sneered at, in that way. I have made a sacrifice to your interests,
Geoffrey--and so has she."