Next afternoon Betty left Jill engaged in filling up the blanks in her Christmas letters, and Pam lovingly up Pamela junior in her various costumes, and, accompanied by her father and Miles, called for Cynthia and set out to walk across the Park to the Albert Hall, where Miss Beveridge and a friend had arranged to meet them in the box.  
Cynthia looked and pretty in a blue costume and hat, which had already caused Betty many of envy, and perhaps it was a remembrance of his own youth which made Dr Trevor pass his hand through Betty’s arm and lead her ahead, so that his son should have the pleasure of a talk with this very charming little lady. Miles was the best of good fellows, all solid goodness and worth, but he was still in the stage, and it would do him good to be out of himself, and forced to play the .
 
Miles himself was by no means sure that he approved of the arrangement. He would have preferred to walk behind Cynthia, and admire her pretty hair, her tiny feet, and the general air of daintiness which was to him the greatest charm of all, but he had not the slightest idea what to say, and thought of the long walk before him with something approaching . Fortunately for him Cynthia was not in the least shy, and had so seldom an opportunity of talking to anyone of her own age, that she could have away the whole afternoon without the slightest difficulty.
 
“It isn’t often you have a holiday, is it?” she said, smiling at him in her bright, friendly manner. “Once when I was up very early I saw you going out before six o’clock, and now if I’m awake I hear the door slam—you do slam it very loudly, you know!—and know it is you going out to your work. It makes me feel so lazy, because I am supposed to do half an hour’s practising before nine o’clock breakfast, and I do feel it such a .”
 
Miles laughed shortly.
 
“Did you ever see me coming back?” he inquired, and when Cynthia nodded, with a twinkle in her eye—“Betty was afraid you would believe I was a real workman,” he told her. “She thought you would put us down as quite impossible people, having a workman living in the house!”
 
“Betty is a goose,” said Betty’s new friend cheerily, “but she is a nice goose. I like her. I guessed you were learning to be an engineer, because I have a cousin who did the same. I like a man to do work. I suppose you are dreadfully interested in all those noisy engines and things. Tell me about them.”
 
It was rather a large order, and Miles would have answered shortly enough if an ordinary acquaintance had put such a question, but there was a about Cynthia which broke down reserve, and to his own he found himself answering quite easily and naturally.
 
“I am not studying for railway engineering—I am going in for mines. It’s a different course altogether, and in some ways much more difficult. There seems nothing that a mining engineer ought not to know—assaying, and surveying, and everything to do with minerals, and, of course, a thorough understanding of pumps, and all the employed. Then he ought to know something about doctoring, and even cooking, if he wants to be an all-round success, for ten to one he will be sent to some out-of-the-way where there is no one else to look after the comfort of his men—”
 
“Is that what you intend to do? Go and bury yourself at the end of the world?”
 
“I expect so—any time after the next six months. I shall have finished my course by that time, and be on the look-out for the first opening that comes!”
 
“What will Betty do without you?”
 
Betty’s brother his shoulders with the unconcern with which, it is to be feared, most lads regard their sisters’ feelings.
 
“Oh, she’ll get used to it! It’s no use sticking at home if one wants to get on in the world. I should never be content to jog along in a secondary position all my life, as some fellows do. I don’t care how hard I work, but I mean to get to the very top of the tree!”
 
“Wish I’d been born a boy! It must be delicious to rough it in the wilds,” sighed Cynthia, stepping daintily over a , and looking down with concern to see if perchance there was a splash on her boots. “Boys have much the best of it; they have a chance of doing something great in the world, while girls have to stay at home and—darn their socks! All the great things are done by men—in war, in science, in discovery, even in art and literature, though a few women may equal them there. All the great things are made by men, too, the wonderful cathedrals and buildings, and the great bridges and battleships—all the big things. There’s so little left for us.”
 
Miles looked at her beneath drawn brows, his face with the smile that Betty loved to see.
 
“And who makes the men?” he asked simply, and Cynthia peered at him in startled, eager fashion, and cried—
 
“You mean—we do? Women, mothers and sisters and wives? Is that what you mean? Oh, I do think you say nice things!” (Shy, silent old Miles being accused of saying “nice things” to a member of the opposite sex! Wonders will never cease!) “I shall remember that, next time I see a lucky boy pass by the railings, and looking as if the world belonged to him, while I must stand behind the curtains, because it’s not ‘lady-like’ to stare out of the windows! I do and rage sometimes!”
 
Miles’ laugh rang out so merrily that Betty turned to stare in . The idea of Cynthia doing anything so violent as “ramp and rage” seemed impossible to realise, as one looked at her dainty figure and sweet pink-and-white face. All the same it was a pleasure to find that she did not belong to the wax-doll type of girl, but had a will and a temper of her own.
 
“Yes, you may laugh,” she cried, laughing herself, “but it’s quite true. Or perhaps it would be more ‘lady-like’ to say that I feel like ‘a caged bird,’ as people do in books. In future I shall console myself with the thought that I may be the lever which supplies the force. Is that right, or ridiculously wrong? It’s rash of me to use engineering terms before you. I mean that I’ll try to be a good influence to some man, and so inspire work, if I can’t do it myself. The worst is, I know so few men! Father is abroad, all our relations are far away, and until I come out I seem to meet nothing but girls, old and young. Of course, if I got to know you better, I might influence you!”
 
She turned her laughing face upon him, the face of a frank, innocent child, for, though she was nearly seventeen years old, Cynthia was absolutely innocent of the instinct which is strong in some little girls in the coral and pinafore stage. She offered her friendship to Betty’s brother as composedly as she had done to Betty herself; it was Miles who blushed, and stared at the pavement, and his voice sounded and difficult as he his reply—
 
“I wish you—I’m sure I should—awfully good thing for me if you did!”
 
“Very well; but you will have to do great things, remember! I shan’t be satisfied with anything less. It will be good for me too, for I shall have to be very stern with ............