critically, not realising that it was the vivid colouring of Cynthia
Farrow that had for the moment at least spoilt him for paler beauty.

Christine was very pale and a little nervous-looking. Her eyes--such
beautiful brown eyes they were--showed darkly against her fair skin.
Her hair was brown, too, dead brown, very straight and soft.

"By Jove! it's ripping to see you again after all this time," Jimmy
Challoner broke out again eagerly. He looked at the mother rather than
the daughter, for though he and Christine had been sweethearts for a
little while in her pinafore days, Jimmy Challoner had adored Mrs.
Wyatt right up to the time when, in his first Eton coat, he had said
good-bye to her to go to school and walked right out of their lives.

"And what are you doing now, Jimmy?" Mrs. Wyatt asked him. "I suppose
I may still call you Jimmy?" she said playfully.

"Rather! please do! I'm not doing anything, as a matter of fact,"
Challoner explained rather vaguely. "I've got rooms in the Temple, and
the great Horatio sends me a quarterly allowance, and expects me not to
live beyond it." He made a little grimace. "You remember my brother
Horace, of course!"

"Of course I do! Is he still abroad?"

"Yes, he'll never come back now; not that I want him to," Jimmy
hastened to add, with one of those little inward qualms that shook him
whenever he thought of his brother, and what that brother would say
when he knew that he was shortly to be asked to accept Cynthia Farrow
as a sister-in-law.