"A pretty relation!" said Dolly.
"Well, you can't expect a brother to find his sister particularly pretty when such a dazzling creature as you is before his eyes. But people do say that Angel is pretty," said I.
"Brother!" cried Dolly. "You don't expect me to believe that that little chit is your sister."
"What do you mean?" said I with a fine sternness.
"Well, you told me once that you hadn't got a sister, and that your mother had died when you were a baby, and that it was a pity you had never known a woman's refining influence, for you would have had a nicer disposition."
Oh, the folly of confidence? I certainly had wailed that wail in an expansive moment, and now my expansiveness had found me out.
"Oh, then," I said carelessly. "Then Angel was in the hands of her guardian and hadn't come to live with me."
Dolly went down six steps in silence considering that information, then she said with some distrust: "That sounds all right—but—but you're so clever—one never knows. Yet, after all, you're hardly the man to carry on with a little chit like that."
"Thank you," I said. "But when all is said and done, if Angel weren't my sister, you're hardly the person to talk about carrying on. What about Springer-Sykes?"
