"She MIGHT have written herself," Cyril murmured half aloud. He was
evidently disappointed at this very short measure of correspondence
on the subject.

But Montague Nevitt took a more cheerful view. "Oh, Reginald
Clifford, of Craighton!" he cried with a smile, his invariable smile.
"I know all about HIM. He's a friend of Colonel Kelmscott's down
at Tilgate Park. C.M.G., indeed! What a ridiculous old peacock.
He was administrator of St. Kitts once upon a time, I believe, or
was it Nevis or Antigua? I don't quite recollect, I'm afraid; but
anyhow, some comical little speck of a sugary, niggery, West Indian
Island; and he was made a Companion of St. Michael and St. George
when his term was up, just to keep him quiet, don't you know, for
he wanted a knighthood, and to shelve him from being appointed to
a first-class post like Barbados or Trinidad. If it's Elma Clifford
you were shut up with in the tunnel, Cyril, you might do worse,
there's no doubt, and you might do better. She's an only daughter,
and there's a little money at the back of the family, I expect;
but I fancy the Companion of the Fighting Saints lives mainly on
his pension, which, of course, is purely personal, and so dies with
him."

Cyril folded up the note without noticing Nevitt's words and put it
in his pocket, somewhat carefully and obtrusively. "Thank you," he
said, in a very quiet tone, "I didn't ask you about Miss Clifford's
fortune. When I want information on that point I'll apply for
it plainly. But meanwhile I don't think any lady's name should be
dragged into conversation and bandied about like that, by an absolute
stranger."