Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/54

 "but my sister died years and years ago. Still, if it suits you, if you want to be somebody's sister . . ."

"It suits me," she answered—"I want to be placed, you see."

I knew that my name was good enough to place anyone. We had been the Grangers of Etchingham since—oh, since the flood. And if the girl wanted to be my sister and a Granger, why the devil shouldn't she, so long as she would let me continue on this footing? I hadn't talked to a woman—not to a well set-up one—for ages and ages. It was as if I had come back from one of the places to which younger sons exile themselves, and for all I knew it might be the correct thing for girls to elect brothers nowadays in one set or another.

"Oh, tell me some more," I said, "one likes to know about one's sister. You and the Right Honourable Charles Gurnard are Dimensionists, and who are the others of your set?"

"There is only one," she answered. And would you believe it!—it seems he was Fox, the editor of my new paper.

"You select your characters with charming