Connie's truant gaze. "Aren't we?" he asked of Miss Fowler, his eyes
dancing. She smiled encouragingly.

"I think you are such a nice man to have about," commented Mrs.
Medcroft, this time yawning freely and stretching her fine young arms in
the luxury of home contentment.

Brock went to bed early, in Vienna that night--tired but happy, caring
not what the morrow brought forth so long as it continued to provide him
with a sister-in-law and a wife who was devoted--to another man.




CHAPTER III

THE DISTANT COUSINS


The end of the week found Brock quite thoroughly domesticated--to use an
expression supplied by his new sister-in-law. True, he had gone through
some trying ordeals and had lost not a little of his sense of locality,
but he was rapidly recovering it as the pathway became easier and less
obscure. At first he was irritatingly remiss in answering to the name of
Medcroft; but, to justify the stupidity, it is only necessary to say
that he had fallen into a condition which scarcely permitted him to know
his own name, much less that of another. He was under the spell!
Wherefore it did not matter at all what name he went by: he would have
answered as readily to one as the other.