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chapter:
II.
IV.
WI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XV.
XVI.
CONTENTS
THE HEAD of THE FAMILY
“HAPPY JACK'? . -
A CHANCE LOST .
Not IN THE PROGRAMME .
WITH THE ELECT
A NEw LEAF
THE DUKE's PROGRESS
THE OLD ADAM . - -
AN ANONYMoUs LETTER
“DEAD NUTS ’’
THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH
THE WRONG MAN -
THE INTERREGNUM
JACK AND HIs MASTER
END of THE INTERREGNUM
“LOVE THE GIFT *
-
PAGE
16
31
44
63
77
90
105
122
137
151
163
180
189
199
215
V


wi
CONTENTS
chaptee
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
AN ANTI-Toxine
HECKLING A MINISTER .
THE CAT AND THE MoUse
“LovE THE DEBT " .
THE BAR SINISTER .
DE MoRTUIs .
PAGE
223
. 233
244
257
266
282


MY LORD DUKE


7,
M & e
mn
MY LORD DUKE
CHAPTER I
The HEAD of THE FAMILY
The Hoile:Secretary ieaiſ...his golf clubs
against a chair. His was the longest face of
all. . - -
“I am only sorry it should have come now,”
said Claude apologetically. ...
“J ust as we were starting for the jinks! Our
first day, too!” muttered the Hºme Secretary.
“I think of Claude,” remarked his wife. “I
can never tell you, Claude, how much I feel for
you! We shall miss you dreadfully, of course;
but we couldn't expect to enjoy ourselves after
this; and I think, in the circumstances, that
you are quite right to go up to town at once.”
“Why?” cried the Home Secretary warmly.
“What good can he do in the Easter holidays?
Everybody will be away; he'd much better come
with me and fill his lungs with fresh air.”
B 1


2 MY LORD DUKE
“I can never tell you how much I feel for
you,” repeated Lady Caroline to Claude Lafont.
“Nor I,” said Olivia. “It’s too horrible! I
don’t believe it. To think of their finding him
after all! I don’t believe they have found him.
You've made some mistake, Claude. You've
forgotten your code; the cable really means
that they've not found him, and are giving up
the search 1” • * * * * *
Claude Lafont shook his head, -
“There may be something it, what Olivia
says,” remarked the Home Secretary. “The
mistake may have been made at the other end.
It would bear talking over on the links.”
Claude shook his head again. -
“We have no reason to suppose there has
been a mistake. at all, Mr. Seliwood. Cripps
is not the kind of man to make istakes; and
I can swear to my code. - The word means,
“Duke found–H.sair with him at once.’”
“An Australian Duke!” exclaimed Olivia.
“A blackamoor, no doubt,” said Lady Caro-
line with conviction.
“Your kinsman, in any case,” said Claude
Lafont, laughing; “and my cousin; and the
head of the family from this day forth.”
“It was madness l’’ cried Lady Caroline
softly. “Simple madness—but then all you


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 3
poets are mad! Excuse me, Claude, but you
remind me of the Lafont blood in my own
veins—you make it boil. I feel as if I never
could forgive you ! To turn up your nose at
one of the oldest titles in the three kingdoms;
to think twice about a purely hypothetical heir
at the antipodes; and actually to send out
your solicitor to hunt him up ! If that was
not Quixotic lunacy, I should like to know
what is ?”
The Right Honourable George Sellwood took
a new golf-ball from his pocket, and bowed his
white head mournfully as he stripped off the
tissue paper.
“My dear Lady Caroline, noblesse oblige —
and a man must do his obvious duty,” he heard
Claude saying, in his slightly pedantic fashion.
“Besides, I should have cut a very sorry figure
had I jumped at the throne, as it were, and sat
there until I was turned out. One knew there
had been an heir in Australia; the only thing
was to find out if he was still alive; and Cripps
has done so. I’m bound to say I had given
him up. Cripps has written quite hopelessly
of late. He must have found the scent and
followed it up during the last six weeks; but
in another six he will be here to tell us all
about it—and we shall see the Duke. Mean-


4 MY LORD DUKE
while, pray don't waste your sympathies upon
me. To be perfectly frank, this is in many
ways a relief to me — I am only sorry it
has come now. You know my tastes; but I
have hitherto found it expedient to make a
little secret of my opinions. Now, however,
there can be no harm in my saying that they
are not entirely in harmony with the hereditary
principle. You hold up your hands, dear Lady
Caroline, but I assure you that my seat in the
Upper Chamber would have been a seat of con-
scientious thorns. In fact I have been in a
difficulty, ever since my grandfather's death,
which I am very thankful to have removed.
On the other hand, I love my—may I say my
art? And luckily I have enough to cultivate
the muse on, at all events, the best of oatmeal;
so I am not to be pitied. A good quatrain,
Olivia, is more to me than coronets; and the
society of my literary friends is dearer to my
heart than that of all the peers in Christendom.”
Claude was a poet; when he forgot this fact
he was also an excellent fellow. His affecta-
tions ended with his talk. In appearance he
was distinctly desirable. He had long, clean
limbs, a handsome, shaven, mild-eyed face, and
dark hair as short as another's. He would
have made an admirable Duke.


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 5
Mr. Sellwood looked up a little sharply from
his dazzling new golf-ball.
“Why go to town at all?” said he.
“Well, the truth is, I have been in a false po-
sition all these months,” replied Claude, forget-
ting his poetry and becoming natural at once.
“I want to get out of it without a day's unnec-
essary delay. This thing must be made public.”
The statesman considered.
“I suppose it must,” said he, judicially.
“Undoubtedly,” said Lady Caroline, looking
from Olivia to Claude. “The sooner the
better.”
“Not at all,” said the Home Secretary. “It
has kept nearly a year. Surely it can keep an-
other week? Look here, my good fellow. I
come down here expressly to play golf with
you, and you want to bunker me in the very
house ! I take it for the week for nothing else,
and you want to desert me the very first morning.
You shan’t do either, so that's all about it.”
“You’re a perfect tyrant l” cried Lady Caro-
line. “I’m ashamed of you, George; and I
hope Claude will do exactly as he likes. I
shall be sorry enough to lose him, goodness
knows!”
“So shall I,” said Olivia simply.
Lady Caroline shuddered.


6 MY LORD DUKE
“Look at the day!” cried Mr. Sellwood,
jumping up with his pink face glowing beneath
his virile silver hair. “Look at the seal Look
at the sand l Look at the sea-breeze lifting the
very carpet under our feet! Was there ever
such a day for golf?”
Claude wavered visibly.
“Come on,” said Mr. Sellwood, catching up
his clubs. “I’m awfully sorry for you, my
boy. But come onl”
“You will have to give in, Claude,” said
Olivia, who loved her father.
Lady Caroline shrugged her shoulders.
“Of course,” said she, “I hope he will; still
I don't think our own selfish considerations
should detain him against his better judgment.”
“I am eager to see Cripps's partners,” said
Claude vacillating. “They may know more
about it.”
“And solicitors are such trying people,” re-
marked Lady Caroline sympathetically; “one
always does want to see them personally, to
know what they really mean.”
“That's what I feel,” said Claude.
“But what on earth has he to consult
them about?” demanded the Home Secretary.
“Everything will keep — except the golf. Be-
sides, my dear fellow, you are perfectly safe
* -


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 7
in the hands of Maitland, Hollis, Cripps and
Company. A fine steady firm, and yet pushing
too. I recollect they were the first solicitors in
London —” -
“Were !” said his wife significantly.
“To supply us with typewritten briefs, my
love. Now there is little else. In such hands,
my dear Claude, your interests are quite un-
dramatically safe.” -
“Still,” said Claude, “it’s an important mat-
ter; and I am, after all, for the moment, the
head of—”
“I’ll tell you what you are,” cried the poli-
tician, with a burst of that hot brutality which
had formerly made him the wholesome terror
of the Junior Bar; “you're a confounded minor
Cockney poet ! If you want to go back to your
putrid midnight oil, go back to it; if you want
to get out of the golf, get out of it! I'm off.
I shouldn't like to be rude to you, Claude, my
boy, and I may be if I remain. No doubt I
shall be able to pick up somebody down at the
links.”
Claude struck his flag.
A minute later, Olivia, from the broad bay
window, watched the lank, handsome poet and
the sturdy, white-haired statesman hurrying
along the Marina arm-in-arm; both in knick-


8 My Lord DUKE
erbockers and Norfolk jackets; and each carry-
ing a quiverful of golf-clubs in his outer hand.
The girl was lost in thought.
“Olivia,” said a voice behind her, “your father
behaved like a brute l’”
“I didn't think so; it was all in good part.
And it will do him so much good!”
“Do Whom 2 ”
“Poor Claude! Of course he is dreadfully
cut up.”
“Then why did he pretend to be pleased?”
“That was his pluck. He took it splendidly.
I never admired him so much l’”
Lady Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but
shut it again without a word. Her daughter's
slight figure was silhouetted against the middle
window of the bow; the sun put a golden crown
upon the fair young head; yet the head was
bent, and the girl's whole attitude one of pity
and of thought. Lady Caroline Sellwood rose
quietly, and left the room.
That species of low cunning, which was one of
her Ladyship's traits, had placed her for the mo-
ment in a rather neat dilemma. Claude Lafont
had cast poet's eyes at Olivia for months and
years; and for weeks and months Olivia's mother
had wished there were less poetry and more passion
in the composition of that aristocrat. He would


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 9
not say what nobody else, not even Lady Caro-
line, could say for him. He was content to
dangle and admire; he had called Olivia his
“faëry queen,” with his lips and with his pen,
in private and in print; but he had betrayed no
immediate desire to call her his wife. Lady
Caroline had recommended him to marry, and
he had denounced marriage as “the death of
romance.” Quite sure in her own mind that
she was dealing with none other than the
Duke of St. Osmund's, it was her Ladyship who
had planned the present small party (which her
distinguished husband would call a “foursome”)
for the Easter Recess. Flatly disbelieving in
the existence of the alleged Australian heir, she
had seen the merit of engaging Olivia to Claude
before the latter assumed his title in the eyes of
the world. That the title was his to assume,
when he liked, had been the opinion of all the
Lafonts, save Claude himself, from the very
first; and, when it suited her, Lady Caroline
Sellwood was very well pleased to consider her-
self a Lafont. In point of fact, her mother had
borne that illustrious name before her marriage
with the impecunious Earl Clennell of Bally-
cawley; and Lady Caroline was herself a great-
granddaughter of the sixth Duke of St. Os-
mund's.


10 MY LORD DUKE
The sixth Duke (who exerted himself to make
, the second half of the last century rather wick-
eder than the first) had two sons, of whom her
present Ladyship's grandfather was the younger.
The elder became the seventh Duke, and begot
the eighth (and most respectable) Duke of
St. Osmund's — the aged peer lately deceased.
The eighth Duke, again, had but two sons, who
both predeceased him. These two sons were,
respectively, Claude's father and the unmention-
able Marquis of Maske. The Marquis was a
man after the heart of his worst ancestor, a fasci-
nating blackguard, neither more nor less. At
twenty-four he had raised the temperature of
his native air to a degree incompatible with his
own safety; and had fled the country never to
return. Word of his death was received from
Australia in the year 1866. He had died horri-
bly, from thirst in the wilderness, and yet a
proper compassion was impossible even after
that. For the news was accompanied by a
letter from the dead man's hand— scrawled at
his last gasp, and pinned with his knife to the
tree under which the body was found — yet
composed in a vein of revolting cynicism, and
containing further news of the most embarrass-
ing description. The Marquis was leaving be-
hind him — somewhere in Australia — at the


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 11
moment he really could not say where — a small
Viscount Dillamore to inherit ultimately the
title and estates. He gave no dates, but said
his wife was dead. To the best of his belief,
however, the lad was alive; and might be
known by the French eagle of the Lafonts,
which the father had himself tattooed upon his
little chest.
This was all the clue which had been left to
Claude, to follow on a bad man's bare word, or
to ignore at his own discretion. For reasons
best known to himself, the old Duke had taken
no steps to discover the little Marquis. Un-
luckily, however, his late Grace had not been
entirely himself for many years before his death;
and those reasons had never transpired. Claude,
on the other hand, was a man of fastidious
temperament, a person of infinite scruples, with
a morbid horror of the incorrect. He would
spend half the morning deciding between a
semicolon and a full stop; and he was consist-
ently conscientious in matters of real moment,
as, for example, in that of his marriage. He
had been asking himself, for quite a twelve-
month, whether he really loved Olivia; he had
no intention of asking her until he was quite
convinced on the point. To such a man there
was but one course possible on the old Duke's


12 MY LORD DUKE
death. And Claude had taken it with the
worst results.
“He has no sympathy for me,” said Lady
Caroline bitterly, as she went upstairs. “He
has cut his own throat, and there's an end of it;
except that if he thinks he's going to marry any
daughter of mine, after this, he is very much
mistaken.”
It was extremely mortifying all the same; to
have prepared the ground so carefully, to have
arranged every preliminary for a match which
had now to be abandoned altogether; and worse
still, to have turned away half the eligible
young men in town for the sake of a Duke who
was not a Duke at all. Lady Caroline Sellwood
had three daughters. The eldest had made a
good, solid, military marriage, and enjoyed in
India a social position that was not unworthy of
her. The second daughter had not done quite
so well; still, her husband, the Rev. Francis
Freke, was a divine whose birth was better than
his attainments, so that there was every chance
of seeing his little legs in gaiters before either
foot was in his grave. But Olivia was her
youngest (“my eve lamb,” Lady Caroline used
to call her, although no other kind had graced
her fold), and in her mother's opinion she was
fitted for a better fate than that which had


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 18
befallen either of her sisters. Olivia was the
prettiest of the three. Her little fair head,
“sunning over with curls,” as Claude never
tired of saying, was made by nature with a self-
evident view to strawberry-leaves and twinkling
tiaras. And Lady Caroline meant it to wear
them yet.
She had done her best to encourage Claude in
his inclination to run up to town at once. The
situation at the seaside had become charged
with danger. Not only did it appear to Lady
Caroline that the poet was at last satisfied with
the state of his own affections, but she had
reason to fear that Claude Lafont would have a
better chance with Olivia than would the Duke
of St. Osmund's. The child was peculiar. She
had read too much, and there was a suspiciously
sentimental strain in her. Her acute mother
did not imagine her “vulgarly in love” (as she
called it) with the aesthetic Claude; but she had
heard him tell the girl that “pity from her ” was
“more dear than that from another ”; and it
was precisely this pity which Lady Caroline
now dreaded as fervently as she would have
welcomed it the day before. Her stupid hus-
band had outwitted her in the matter of Claude's
departure. Lady Caroline was hardly at the top
of the stairs before she had made up the masterly


14 MY LORD DUKE
a
mind which she considered at least a match for
her stupid husband's. He would not allow
her to get rid of Claude? Very well; nothing
simpler. She would get rid of Olivia instead.
The means suggested itself almost as quickly
as the end.
Lady Caroline took a little walk to the post-
office, and said she had been on the pier. In a
couple of hours a telegram arrived from Mrs.
Freke, begging Olivia to go to her at once. Lady
Caroline was apparently overwhelmed with sur-
prise. But she despatched her ewe lamb by the
next train.
“Olivia, I won both rounds !” called out the
Home Secretary, when he strutted in towards
evening, pink and beaming. Claude also looked
the better and the brighter for his day; but
Lady Caroline took the brightness out of him
in an instant; and the Home Secretary beamed
no more that night.
“It is no use your calling Olivia,” said her
Ladyship calmly; “by this time she must be a
hundred miles away. You needn't look so
startled, George. You know the state to which
poor Francis reduces himself by the end of
Lent, and you know that dear Mary's baby is
not thriving as it ought. I shouldn't wonder
if he makes it fast, too ! At all events Mary


THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY 15
telegraphed for Olivia this morning, and I let
her go. Now it's no use being angry with any
of us! With a young baby and a half-starved
husband it was a very natural request. There's
the telegram on the mantelpiece for you to see
for yourself what she says.”


CHAPTER II
“HAPPY JACK"
A DILETTANTE in letters, a laggard in love,
and a pedant in much of his speech, Claude
Lafont was nevertheless possessed of certain
graces of the heart and head which entitled
him at all events to the kindly consideration of
his friends. He had enthusiasm and some
soul; he had an open hand and an essentially
simple mind. These were the merits of the
man. They were less evident than his foibles,
which, indeed, continually obscured them. He
would have been the better for one really bad
fault: but nature had not salted him with a
single vice.
Unpopular at Eton, he had found his feet per-
haps a little too firmly at Oxford. There his
hair had grown long and his views outrageous.
Had the old Duke of St. Osmund's been in
his right mind at the time, he would certainly
have quitted it at the report of some of his
grandson's contributions to the university de-
16


“HAPPY JACK" 17
bates. Claude, however, had the courage of his
most extravagant opinions, and even at Oxford
he was a man whom it was possible to respect.
The era of Toynbee Hall and a gentlemanly,
kid-gloved Socialism came a little later; there
were other and intermediate phases, into which
it is unnecessary to enter. Claude came through
them all with two things, at least, as good as
new: his ready enthusiasm and his excellent
heart.
Whether he really did view the new twist in
his life with the satisfaction which he professed
is an open and immaterial question; all that is
certain or important is the fact that he did not
permit himself to repine. He was never in
better spirits than in the six weeks' interval
between the receipt of Mr. Cripps's cable and
that gentleman's arrival with the new Duke.
Claude divided the time between the proofs
of his new volume of poems and conscien-
tious preparations for the proper reception of his
noble cousin. He had the mansion in Belgrave
Square, which had fallen of late years into dis-
use, elaborately done up, repapered, and fitted
throughout with new hangings and the electric
light. He felt it his duty to hand over the
house in a cleanly and habitable state; and he
was accustomed to work his duty rather hard.
c


18 MY LORD DUKE
He ran down to Maske Towers, the principal
family seat, repeatedly, and had certain renova-
tions carried out as far as possible under his
own eye. In every direction he did more than
he need have done. And so the time passed
very busily, quite happily, and with an interest
that was kept green to the last by the utter
absence of any shred of information concerning
the ninth Duke of St. Osmund's.
Claude had even no idea as to whether he
was a married man. So he legislated for a wife
and family. And his worst visions were of a
hulking, genial, sheep-farming Duke, with a
tribe of very terrible little Lords and Ladies,
duly frightened of their gigantic father, but
paying not the slightest attention to the anaemic
Duchess who all day scolded them through her
freckled nose.
Mr. Cripps's letters continued to arrive by
each week's mail; but they were still written
with a shake of the head and a growing depre-
cation of the wild-goose chase in which the
lawyer now believed himself to be unworthily
engaged. Towards the end of May, however,
the letters stopped. The last one was written
on the eve of an expedition up the country, on
a mere off-chance, to find out more about one
John Dillamore, whom Mr. Cripps had heard of


20 MY LORD DUKE
“One thing quickly,” whispered Claude: “is
he a married man 2°
“No, he isn't.”
The bystander laughed outright. Claude
favoured him with a haughty glance.
“His servant, I presume?”
“No,” said Cripps hoarsely. “I must intro-
duce you. The Duke of St. Osmund's —your
kinsman, Mr. Claude Lafont.”
Claude felt the painful pressure of a horny
fist, and gasped.
“Proud to meet you, mister,” said the Duke.
“So delighted to meet and welcome you,
Duke,” said Claude faintly.
“I’m afraid I’m a bit of a larrikin,” continued
the Duke. “You’d have done as well to leave
me where I was—but now I’m here you’ve got
to call me Jack.”
“You knew, of course, what would happen
sooner or later?” said Claude, with a sickly
smile.
“Not me. My colonial oath, I did not!
Never dreamt of it till I seen him " — with a
jerk of his wideawake towards Mr. Cripps. It
was a very different felt hat from that gentle-
man's; the crown rose like a sugar-loaf, nine
inches from the head; the brim was nearly as
many inches wide; and where the felt touched


* HAPPY JACK" 21
the temples it was stained through and through
with ancient perspiration.
“And I can't sight it now!” added his Grace.
“Nevertheless it's true,” said Mr. Cripps.
Claude was taking in the matted beard, the
peeled nose, and the round shoulders of the
ninth Duke. He was a bushman from top to toe.
“Whatluggage have you?” exclaimed Claude,
with a sudden effort. “We must get it ashore.”
“This is all,” said the Duke, with a grin.
It lay on the deck at their feet: a long cylin-
der whose outer case was an old blue blanket,
very neatly rolled and strapped; an Australian
saddle, with enormous knee-pads, black with
age; and an extraordinary cage like a rabbit-
hutch. The cage was full of cats. The Duke
insisted on carrying it ashore himself.
“This is the man?” whispered Claude, jeal-
ously, to Mr. Cripps.
“The man himself; there's an eagle on his
chest as large as life.”
“But it might be a coincidence —
“It might be, but it isn't,” replied Cripps
shortly. “He’s the Duke all right; the papers
I shall show you are quite conclusive. I own
he doesn't look the part. He's not tractable.
He would come as he is. I heaved one old hat
overboard; but he had a worse in his swag.
**


22 MY LORD DUKE
However, no one on board knew who he was.
I took care of that.”
“God bless you, Cripps!” said Claude Lafont.
He had reserved a first-class carriage. The
Duke took up half of it with his cat-cage, which
he stoutly declined to trust out of his sight.
There were still a few minutes before the train
would start. Claude and Cripps exchanged sym-
pathetic glances.
“I think we ought to drink the Duke's
health,” said Claude, who for once felt the need
of a stimulant himself.
“I think so too,” said Mr. Cripps.
“Then make 'em lock the door,” stipulated
his Grace. “I wouldn't risk my cats being
shook, not for drinks as long as your leg l’”
A grinning guard came forward with his key.
The Duke “mistered” him, and mentioned
where his cats came from as he got out.
“Very kind of you to shout for me,” he con-
tinued as they filed into the refreshment room;
“but why the blazes don't you call me Jack?
Happy Jack's my name, that's what they used
to call me up the bush. I’m not going to
stop being Jack, or happy either, 'cause I'm a
Dook; if I did I'd jolly soon sling it. Now,
my dear, what are you givin' us? Why don't
you let me help myself, like they do up the


“HAPPY JACK" 28
bush? English fashion, is it? And you call
that drop a nobbler, do you, in the old country?
Well, well, here's fun!”
The Duke's custodians were not sorry to get
him back beside his cats. They were really glad
when the train started. The Duke was in high
spirits. The whisky had loosened his tongue.
“Like cats, old man?” he inquired of Claude.
“Then I hope you'll make friends with mine.
They were my only mates, year in, year out, up
at the hut. I wasn't going to leave 'em there
when they'd stood by me so long; not likely;
so here they are. See that black 'un in the
corner? I call her Black Maria, and that's her
kitten. She went and had a large family at sea,
but this poor little beggar's the only one what
lived to tell the tale. That great big Tom, he's
the father. I don't think much of Tom, but it
would have been a shame to leave him behind.
No, sir, my favourite's the little tortoise-shell
with the game leg. He got cotched in a rabbit
trap last shearing-time; he's the most adventur-
ous little cat that ever was, so I call him Liv-
ingstone. I've known him explore five miles
from the hut, when there wasn't a drop of
water or a blade of feed in the paddicks, and
yet come back as fat as butter. A little caution,
I tell you! Out you come, Livingstonel”


24 MY LORD DUKE
Claude thought he had never seen a more ill-
favoured animal. To call it tortoise-shell was
to misuse the word. It was simply yellow; it
ran on three legs; and its nose had been recently
scarified by an enemy's claws.
“No, I’m full up of Tom,” pursued the Duke,
fondling his pet. “Look what he done on board
to Livingstone's nose ! I nearly slung him over
the side. Poor little puss, then, poor little puss |
You may well purr, old toucher; there's a live
Lord scratching your head.”
“Meaning me?” said Claude genially; there
was a kindness in the rugged face, as it bent over
the little yellow horror, that appealed to the poet.
“Meaning you, of course.”
“But I’m not one.”
“You’re not? What a darned shame! Why,
you ought to be a Dook. You'd make a better
one than me !”
The family solicitor was half-hidden behind
that morning's Times; as Jack spoke, he hid
himself entirely. Claude, for his part, saw noth-
ing to laugh at. The Duke's face was earnest.
The Duke's eyes were dark and kind. Like
Claude himself, he had the long Lafont nose,
though sun and wind had peeled it red; and a
pair of shaggy brown eyebrows gave strength
at all events to the hairy face. Claude was


“ HAPPY JACK'? 25
thinking that half-an-hour at Truefitt's, a pot
of vaseline, and the best attentions of his own
tailors in Maddox Street would make a new
man of Happy Jack. Not that his suit was on
a par with his abominable wideawake. He could
not have worn these clothes in the bush. They
were obviously his best ; and, as obviously,
ready-made.
Happy Jack was meantime apostrophising his
pet.
“Ah! but you was with me when that there
gentleman found me, wasn't you, Livingstone?
You should tell the other gentleman about that.
We never thought we was a Dook, did we ?
We thought ourselves a blooming ordinary com-
mon man. My colonial oath, and so we are
But you recollect that last bu'st of ours, Living-
stone 2 I mean the time we went to knock
down the thirty-one pound cheque what never
got knocked down properly at all. We had a
rare thirst on us 92
Mr. Cripps in his corner smacked down the
Times on his knees.
“Look there !” he cried. “Did ever you
see such grass as that, Jack? You’ve nothing
like it in New South Wales. I declare it does
my old heart good to see an honest green field
again l’”


26 MY LORD DUKE
Jack looked out for an instant only.
“Ten sheep to the acre,” said he. “Won-
derful, isn't it, Livingstone 2 And you an’ me
used to ten acres to the sheep ! But we were
talking about that last little spree; you want
your Uncle Claude to hear all about it, I see
you do ; you're not the cat to make yourself
out better than what you are; not you, Living-
stone ! Well, as I was saying—”
“Those red-tiled roofs are simply charming!”
exclaimed the solicitor.
“A perfect poem,” said Claude.
“And that May-tree in full bloom l’”
“A living lyric,” said Claude.
It was really apple-blossom.
“And you,” cried the Duke to his cat, “you're
a comic song, that's what you are Tell 'em you
won't be talked down, Livingstone. Tell this
gentleman he's got to hear the worst. Tell him
that when the other gentleman found us”—the
solicitor raised his Times with a shrug — “one
of us was drunk, drunk, drunk; and the other
was watching over him—and the other was my
little cat l”
“You’re joking, of course?” said Claude,
with a flush.
“Not me, mister. That's a fact. You see,
it was like this 32


* HAPPY JACK" 27
“Thanks,” said Claude hastily; “but I’d far
rather not know.”
“Why not, old toucher?”
“It would hurt me,” said Claude, with a
shudder.
“Hurt you! Hear that, Livingstone? It
would hurt him to hear how we knocked down
our last little cheque! That's the best one
I’ve heard since I left the ship !”
“Nevertheless it's the case.”
“And do you mean to tell me you were never
like that yourself?”
“Never in my life.”
“Well, shoot me dead!” whispered the Duke
in his amazement.
“It ought not to surprise you,” said Claude,
in a tone that set the Times shaking in the far
corner of the carriage.
“It does, though. I can't help it. You're
the first I’ve ever met that could say as much.”
“Pray let us drop the subject. I prefer to
hear no more. You pain me more than I can
say!”
Claude's flush had deepened; his supersensi-
tive soul was indeed scandalised, and so visibly
that an answering flush showed upon the Duke's
mahogany features, like an extra coat of polish.
“I pain you!” he echoed, dropping his cat.


28 MY LORD DUKE
“I’m very sorry then. I am so! I had no in-
tention of doing any such thing. All I wanted
was to fly my true flag at once, like, and have
done with it. And I’ve pained you; and you
bet I’ll go on paining you all the time ! How
can I help it? I’m not what us back-blockers
call a parlour-man, though I may be a Dook;
but neither the one nor the other is my fault.
You should have let me be in the bush. I was
all right there — all right with my hut and my
cats. I’d never known anything better. I never
knew who I was. What did it matter if I knocked
down my cheque when I got full up of the cats
and the hut? Nobody thinks anything of that
up the bush. The boss used always to take
me on again; some day I'll tell you about my
old boss; he was the best friend ever I had. A
real gentleman, who thought no worse of you
so long's it only happened now and then. But
see here ! It shall never happen again. It
didn't matter in the boundary rider, but p'r'aps
it might in the Dook. Anyhow I'm strict TT
from this moment; that whisky at Dover shall
be my last. And I’m darned sorry I pained
you, and — and dash it, here's my fist on it for
good and all !”
It is difficult to say which hand wrung the
harder. Claude was not pleased with himself;


“HAPPY JACK" 29
the conscious lack of some quality, which the
other possessed, was afflicting him with a novel
and entirely unexpected sense of inferiority.
He was as yet unsure what the missing quality
was; he hardly suspected it of being a virtue;
but it was new to Claude to have these feelings
at all.
He said not another word upon the embarrass-
ing subject, but fell presently into a train of
thought that kept him silent until they steamed
into Victoria. There the conquering Cripps was
met by his wife and daughters; but Claude
managed to get a few more words with him as
they were waiting to have the baggage passed.
“I like him,” said Claude.
“So do I,” was the reply, “and I know him
well.”
“I like his honesty.”
“He is honesty itself. I did my best just now
to keep him from giving himself away—but that
was his deliberate game. Mark you, what he
insisted on telling you was quite true; but on the
whole he has behaved excellently ever since.”
“Well, as long as he doesn't confess his sins
to everybody he meets l’”
“No fear of that; he looks on you as still the
head of the family, with a sort of ex officio right
to know the worst. His own position he doesn't


30 MY LORD DUKE
realise a bit. Yet some day I expect to see him
at least as fit to occupy it as one or two others;
and you are the man to make him so. You will
only require two things.”
The great doors opened inwards, and the
travellers surged in to claim their luggage, with
Mr. Cripps at their head. Claude caught him
by the elbow as he was pointing out his trunks.
“Those two things?” said he.
“Yes, those two, with my initials on each.”
“No, but the two things that I shall need?”
“Oh, those ! Plenty of patience, and plenty
of time.”


CHAPTER III
A CHANCE LOST
IT was the pink of the evening when the
cousins drove off in a four-wheeler with the
cats on top. Claude had been in many minds
about their destination, until the Duke had
asked him to recommend an hotel. At that he
had hesitated a little, and finally pitched upon
the First Avenue. A variety of feelings guided
his choice, chief among them being a vague im-
pression that his wild kinsman would provoke
less attention in Holborn than in Northumber-
land Avenue. To Holborn, at all events, they
were now on their way.
Claude sat far back in the cab; he felt thank-
ful it was not a hansom. In the Mall they met
a string of them, taking cloaked women and
white-breasted men out to dinner. Claude saw
one or two faces he knew, but was himself un-
seen. He saw them stare and smile at the
tanned and bearded visage beneath that vil-
lainous wideawake, which was thrust from one
31


32 MY LORD DURE
window to the other with the eager and unre-
strained excitement of a child. He felt ashamed
of poor Jack. He was sincerely ashamed of this
very feeling.
“What streets l’’ whispered the Duke in an
awestruck whisper. “We’ve nothing like 'em
in Melbourne. They'd knock spots off Syd-
ney. I've been in both.”
Claude had a sudden thought. “For you,”
he said, “these streets should have a special
interest.”
“How's that ?”
“Well, many of them belong to you.”
“WHAT 2 ”
“You are the ground landlord of some of the
streets and squares we have already passed.”
The brown beard had fallen in dismay; now,
however, a mouthful of good teeth showed them-
selves in a frankly incredulous grin.
“What are you givin' us?” laughed Jack.
“I see, you think you’ve got a loan of a new
chum ! Well, so you have. Go ahead l’”
“Not if you don’t choose to believe me,” re-
plied Claude stiffly. “I meant what I said; I
usually do. The property has been in our fam-
ily for hundreds of years.”
“And now it's mine 7”
“And now it's yours.”


A CHANCE LOST 33
The Duke of St. Osmund's took off his mon-
strous wideawake, and passed the back of his
hairy hand across his forehead. The gesture
was eloquent of a mind appalled.
“Have I no homestead on my own run?” he
inquired at length.
“You have several,” said Claude, smiling;
but he also hesitated.
“Several in London?” cried the Duke, aghast
again.
“No — only one in town.”
“That's better! I say, though, why aren't
we going there?”
“Well, the fact is, they're not quite ready for
you; I mean the servants. They — we were all
rather rushed, you know, and they don't expect
you to-night. Do you mind?”
Claude had stated but one fact of many.
That morning, when he stopped his hansom at
the house, he had told the servants not to
expect his Grace until he telegraphed. After
seeing the Duke, he had resolved not to tele-
graph at all; and certainly not to install him
in his own house, as he was, without consulting
other members of the family. He still consid-
ered that decision justified. Nevertheless, the
Duke's reply came as a great relief.
“No, I'm just as glad,” said Jack content-
Id


34 My LoRD DUKE
edly. His contentment was only comparative,
however. The first dim conception of his great-
ness had strangely dashed him; he was no
longer the man that he had been in the train.
An athlete in a frayed frock-coat, and no
shirt, was sprinting behind the cab with the
customary intent; it was a glimpse of him, as
they turned a corner, that slew the oppressed
Duke, and brought Happy Jack back to life.
“Stop the cab!” he roared; “there's a man
on the track of my cats!”
“Nonsense, my dear fellow; it's only a per-
son who'll want sixpence for not helping with
the luggage.”
“Are you sure?” asked Jack suspiciously.
“How do you know he isn't a professional cat-
stealer? I must ask the cabman if they are all
right !” He did so, and was reassured.
“We’re almost at the hotel now,” said Claude,
with misgivings; he was bitterly anticipating
the sensation to be caused there by the arrival
of such a Duke of St. Osmund's, and wonder-
ing whether it would be of any use suggesting
a further period of incognito.
“Nearly there, are we? Then see here,” said
Jack, “I’ve got something to insist on. I mean
to have my way about one matter.”
Claude groaned inwardly.


A CHANCE LOST 35
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you straight. I'm not going to do
the Dook in this hotel. I’m plain Jack Dilla-
more, or I don't go in.”
The delight of this deliverance nearly over-
came the poet.
“I think you're wise,” was all he trusted him-
self to say. “I should be inclined to take the
same course were I in your place. You will
escape a great deal of the sort of adulation
which turneth the soul sick. And for one
night, at all events, you will be able, as an
alien outsider, to form an unprejudiced opinion
of our unlovely metropolis.”
In the bright light of his ineffable relief,
Claude's little mannerisms stood out once more,
like shadows when the sun shines fitfully; but
it was a transient gleam. The arrival at the
hotel was still embarrassing enough. The wide-
awake attracted attention. The attention was
neither of a flattering character in itself nor
otherwise desirable from any point of view. It
made Claude miserable. There was also trouble
about the cats.
Jack insisted on having them with him in
his room. The management demurred. Jack
threatened to go elsewhere. The management
raised no objection; but Claude did. He handed


36 MY LORD DUKE
them his card, and this settled the matter.
There is but one race of Lafonts in Eng-
land. So Jack had his way. A room was
taken; the cats were put into it; milk was set
before them; and Jack left the hotel in Claude's
company, with the key of that room in his
pocket.
Claude would have taken him to his club, but
for both their sakes he did not dare. Yet he was
as anxious as ever to show every hospitality
to the Duke. Accordingly he had refused Jack's
invitation to dine with him in the hotel, and
was taking him across to the Holborn instead.
The dinner went wonderfully. Jack was
delighted with the music, with the electric
lights, with the marble pillars, with the gilded
balconies, with the dinner itself, in fact with
everything. There was but one item which
did not appeal to him: he stoutly refused to
drink a drop of wine.
“A promise is a promise,” said he. “I gave
you my colonial in the train, and I mean to
keep it; for a bit, at all events.”
Claude protested and tempted him in vain.
Jack called for a lemon-squash, and turned his
wine-glasses upside down. He revenged him-
self, however, upon the viands.
“Which entrée, please, sir?” said the waiter.


A CHANCE LOST 37
“Both !” cried Jack. “You may go on,
mister, till I tell you to stop !”
After dinner the cousins went aloft, and
Claude took out his cigarette case and ordered
cigars for the Duke. He could not smoke
them himself, but neither, it appeared, could
Jack. He produced a cutty-pipe, black and
foul with age, and a cake of tobacco like a
piece of shoe-leather, which he began paring
with his knife. Claude had soon to sit farther
away from him.
Jack did not fancy a theatre; he was strongly
in favour of a quiet evening and a long talk;
and it was he who proposed that they should
return, for this purpose, to the First Avenue.
No sooner were they comfortably settled in the
hotel smoking-room, however, than the Duke an-
nounced that he must run upstairs and see to
his cats. And he came down no more that night.
Claude waited patiently for twenty minutes.
Then he began a note to Lady Caroline Sell-
wood. Then he remembered that he could, if
he liked, see Lady Caroline that night. It was
merely a question of driving over to his rooms
in St. James's and putting himself into evening
dress. On the whole, this seemed worth doing.
Claude therefore followed Jack upstairs after
an interval of half-an-hour.


38 MY LORD DUKE
The Duke's rooms were on the first floor.
Claude surprised a group of first-floor servants
laughing and whispering in the corridor. The
little that he heard as he passed made him hot
all over. The exact words were:
“Never see such a man in my life.” “Nor
me, my dear!” “And yet they call this 'ere
a decent 'otel !”
Claude had no doubt in his own mind as to
whom they were talking about. Already the
Duke inspired him with a sort of second-self-
consciousness. Prepared for anything, he
hastened to the room and nervously knocked
at the door.
“Come in l’’ cried Jack's voice.
The door was unlocked; as Claude opened it
the heat of the room fairly staggered him. It
was a sufficiently warm summer night, yet an
enormous fire was burning in the grate.
“My dear fellow !” panted Claude.
Jack was in his trousers and shirt; the
sleeves were rolled up over his brawny arms;
the open front revealed an estuary of hairy
chest; and it was plain at a glance that the
Duke was perspiring at every pore.
“It's all right,” he said, “It’s for the cats.”
“The cats!” said Claude. They were lying
round about the fire.


A CHANCE LOST 39
“Yes, poor devils! They had a fire every
day in the hut, summer and winter. They
never had a single one at sea. They like to
sleep by it—they always did — all but Living-
stone. He sleeps with me when he isn't on
the loose.”
“But you'll never be able to sleep in an
atmosphere like this l’”
Jack was cutting up a pipeful of his black
tobacco.
“Well, it is warm,” he admitted. “And
now you mention it, I may find it a job to
get asleep; but the cats like it, anyhow !”
And he swore at them affectionately as he
lit his pipe.
“Did you forget you'd left me downstairs?”
asked Claude.
“Clean I apologise. I took this idea into
my head, and I could think of nothing else.”
“May we have another window open?
Thank you. I'll smoke one cigarette; then
I must be off.”
“Where to ?”
“My chambers — to dress.”
“To undress, you mean!”
“No, to dress. I’ve got to go out to a - to
a party. I had almost forgotten about it. The
truth is, I want to see Lady Caroline Sellwood,


A CHANCE LOST 41
“You can't get out of it,” laughed Claude.
“I can l’’ he cried. “I mean to get out of
it! I'm not the man for the billet. I wasn't
dragged up to it. And I don’t want it! I
shall only make a darned ass of myself and
everybody else mixed up with me. I may be
the man by birth, but I’m not the man by
anything else; and look here, I want to back
out of it while there's time; and you're the
very man to help me. I wasn't dragged up
to it—but you were. I’m not the man for the
billet — but you are. The very man! You go
to parties in the middle of the night, and you
think nothing of 'em. They’d be the death of
Happy Jack l The whole thing turns me sick
with funk—the life, the money, the responsi-
bility. I never got a sight of it till to-day;
and now I don’t want it at any price. You'd
have got it if it hadn't been for me; so take
it now — for God's sake, take it now ! If it's
mine, it's mine to give. I give it to you!
Claude, old toucher, be the Dook yourself.
Let me and the cats clear back to the bush !”
The poet had listened with amazement, with
amusement, with compassion and concern. He
now shook his head.
“You ask an impossibility. Without going
into the thing, take my word for it that what


A CHANCE LOST 43
“I will with all my heart.”
“And you're quite sure you won't take on
the whole show yourself?” -
“Quite sure,” said Claude, smiling.
“Still, you'll tell me what to do? You'll
tell me what not to do? You'll show me the
ropes? You'll have hold of my sleeve?”
“I’ll do all that; at least, I’ll do all I can.
It may not be much. Still I’ll do it.”
Jack held out a hot, damp hand; yet, just
then, he seemed to be perspiring most freely
under the eyes.
“You’re a good sort, Claudy l’” said he
hoarsely.
“Good-night, old fellow,” said Claude Lafont.


CHAPTER IV
NOT IN THE PROGRAMME
LADY CARoLINE SELLwooD's incomparable
Wednesdays were so salient a feature of those
seasons during which her husband was in office,
and her town house in St. James's Square, that
their standard is still quoted as the ideal of its
kind. These afternoons were never dull. Lady
Caroline cast a broad net, and her average
draught included representatives of every decent
section of the community. But she also pos-
sessed some secret recipe, the envy and the de-
spair of other professional hostesses, and in her
rooms there was never an undue preponderance
of any one social ingredient. Every class—
above a certain line, not drawn too high — was
represented; none was over done; nor was the
mistake made of “packing” the assembly with
interesting people. The very necessary comple-
ment of the merely interested was never wanting.
One met beauty as well as brains; wealth as
well as wit; and quite as many colourless non-
44


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 45
entities as notorieties of every hue. The pro-
portion was always perfect, but not more so than
the general good-temper of the guests. They
foregathered like long-lost brothers and sisters:
the demagogue and the divine; the judge and
the junior; the oldest lady and , the newest
woman; the amateur playwright and the actor-
manager who had lost his play; the minor
novelist and the young lady: who had never
heard of him; and my Lords and Ladies (whose
carriages half-filled the Square) with the very
least of these. It was wonderful to see them
together; it was a solemn thought, but yet a
fact, that their heavenly behaviour was due
simply and entirely to the administrative genius
of Lady Caroline Sellwood.
The Home Secretary hated the Wednesdays;
he was the one person who did; and he only
hated them because they were Wednesdays —
and from the period of his elderly infatuation
for golf. It was his great day for a round; and
Lady Caroline had to make his excuses every
week when it was fine. This was another thing
which her Ladyship did beautifully. She would
say, with a voice full of sympathy, equally
divided between those mutual losers, her guest
and her husband, that poor dear George had to
address such and such a tiresome deputation;


46 MY LORD DUKE
when, as a matter of fact, he was “addressing”
his golf-ball on Wimbledon Common, and enjoy-
ing himself exceedingly. Now, among other
Wednesdays, the Home Secretary was down at
Wimbledon (with a prominent member of the
Opposition) on the afternoon following the
arrival in London of the ninth Duke of St. Os-
mund's; and Mr. Sellwood never knew whether
to pity his wife, or to congratulate himself, on
his absence from her side on that occasion.
One of their constant ornaments, Claude La-
font, had been forced to eschew these Wednes-
days of late weeks. Lady Caroline Sellwood
had never been quite the same to him since the
Easter Recess. She had treated him from that
time with a studied coolness quite inexplicable to
his simple mind; and finally, at Lady Darling-
ford's, she had been positively rude. Claude, of
course, had gone there expressly to prepare
Lady Caroline for the new Duke. This he
conceived to be his immediate duty, and he
attempted to perform it, in the kindliest spirit
imaginable, with all the tact at his command.
Lady Caroline declined to hear him out. She
chose to put a sinister construction upon his
well-meant words, and to interrupt them with
the announcement that she intended, with
Claude's permission, to judge the Duke for her-


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 47
self. Was he married? Ha! then where was
he to be found? Claude told her, was coldly
thanked, and went home to writhe all that
Tuesday night under the mortification of his
kinswoman's snub.
Yet, on the Wednesday afternoon, Claude La-
font not only went to the Sellwoods' as though
nothing had happened, but he was there before
the time. And Lady Caroline was not only
amazed, but (for the first time since Easter)
really pleased to see him: for already she had
been given cause to regret her insolent disregard
of him overnight at Lady Darlingford's. She
was even composing an apology when the white-
ness of Claude's face brought her thoughts to
a standstill.
“Have you seen him?” he cried, as they
met.
“The Duke 2''
“Yes—haven't you seen him this morning?”
“No, indeed! Haven't you?”
Claude sat down with a groan, shaking his
head, and never seeing the glittering, plump,
outstretched hand.
“Haven't you?” repeated Lady Caroline, sit-
ting down herself.
“Not this morning. I made sure he would
come here!”


48 MY LORD DUKE
“So he ought to have done. I asked him to
lunch. The note was written and posted the
instant we came in from the Darlingfords'.
Claude, I wasn’t nice to you there ! Can you
forgive me? I thought you were prejudiced.
My dreadful temper rose in arms on the side
of the absent man; it always was my great
weakness rightly or wrongly to take the part
of those who aren't there to stick up for them-
selves | *
Her great weakness was of quite another
character, but Claude bowed. He was barely
listening.
“I’ve lost him,” he said, looking at Lady
Caroline, with a rolling eye. “He’s disap-
peared.”
“Never !”
“This morning,” said Claude. “I did so
hope he was here !”
“He sent no answer, not one word, and he
never came. Who saw him last?”
“The hotel people, early this morning. It
seems he ordered a horse for seven o’clock,
shortly after I left him last night. So they
got him one, and off he went before breakfast
in the flannel collar and the outrageous bush
wideawake in which he landed. And he's never
come back.” -


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME . 49
A change came over Lady Caroline Sellwood.
She drew her chair a little nearer, and she
favoured Claude Lafont with a kindlier glance
than he had had from her since Easter.
“Something may have happened,” whispered
Lady Caroline hopefully.
“That's just it. Something must have hap-
pened.”
“But something dreadful! Only last season
there was a man killed in the Row I Was he
—a very rough diamond, Claude?”
“Very.”
Lady Caroline sighed complacently.
“But you can't help liking him,” hastily
added Claude, “and I hope to goodness noth-
ing serious is the matter!”
“Of course, so do I. That goes without
saying.”
“Nor is he at all a likely man to be thrown.
He has lived his life in the saddle. By the
way, he brought his own old bush-saddle with
him, and it appears that he insisted on riding
out in that too.”
“You see, Claude, it’s a pity you didn’t
leave him in the bush; he's evidently devoted
to it still.”
“He is — that's the trouble; he has already
spoken of bolting back there. My fear is that


50 * MY. LORD DUKE
he may even now be suiting the action to the
word.”
“Don’t tell me that,” said Lady Caroline,
whose head was still full of her first theory.
“It’s what I fear; he’s just the sort of fellow
to go back by the first boat, if the panic took
him. He showed signs of a panic last night.
You see, he's only just beginning to realise
what his position here will mean. And it
frightens him; it may have frightened him out
of our sight once and for all.”
Lady Caroline shook her head.
“My fear is that he has broken his neck!
And if he has, depend upon it, sad as it would
be, it would still be for the best. That's what
I always say: everything is for the best,”
repeated Lady Caroline, pensively gazing at
Claude's handsome head. “However,” she
added, as the door opened, “here's Olivia; go
and ask her what she thinks. I am prepared
for the worst. And pray stop, dear Claude,
and let us talk the matter over after the others
have gone. We may know the worst by that
time. And we have seen nothing of you this
season!”
Olivia looked charming. She was also kind
to Claude. But she entirely declined to em-
brace her mother's dark view of the Duke's


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 51
disappearance. On the other hand, she was
inconveniently inquisitive about his looks and
personality, and Claude had to say many words
for his cousin before he could get in one for
himself. However, he did at length contrive
to speak of his new volume of poems. It was
just out. He was having a copy of the ex-
ceedingly limited large-paper edition specially
bound in vellum for Olivia's acceptance.
Olivia seemed pleased, and apart from his
anxiety Claude had not felt so happy for
weeks. They were allowed to talk to each
other until the rooms began to fill.
It was a very good Wednesday; but then the
season was at its height. The gathering com-
prised the usual measure of interesting and
interested persons, and the former had made
their names upon as many different fields as
ever. Claude had a chat with his friend,
Edmund Stubbs, a young man with an un-
healthy skin and a vague reputation for
immense cleverness. They spoke of the
poems. Stubbs expressed a wish to see the
large-paper edition, which was not yet for sale,
as did Ivor Llewellyn, the impressionist artist,
who was responsible for the “decorations” in
most volumes of contemporary minor verse,
Claude's included. Claude was injudicious


52 MY LORD DUKE
enough to invite both men to his rooms that
night. The Impressionist was the most re-
markable-looking of all Lady Caroline's guests.
He wore a curled fringe and a flowing tie, and
pince-nez attached to his person by a broad
black ribbon. His pale face was prematurely
drawn, and he showed his gums in a deathly
grin at the many hard things which Stubbs
muttered at the expense of all present whom
he knew by sight. Claude had a high opinion
of both these men, but for once he was scarcely
in tune for their talk, which was ever at a
sort of artistic-intellectual concert-pitch. The
Duke was to be forgotten in the society of
Olivia only. Claude therefore edged away,
trod on the skirts of a titled divorcée, got
jammed between an Irish member and a com-
poser of comic songs, and was finally engaged
in conversation by the aged police magistrate,
Sir Joseph Todd.
Sir Joseph had lowered his elephantine form
into a chair beside the tea-table, where he sat,
with his great cane between his enormous legs,
munching cake like a school-boy and winking
at his friends. He winked at Claude. The
magistrate had been a journalist, and a scan-
dalous Bohemian, so he said, in his young
days; he had given Claude introductions and


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 55
the Duke was just as he had been the day
before, as unkempt, as undressed (his Crimean
shirt had a flannel collar, but no tie), as round-
shouldered; with his nose and ears still flayed
by the sun; and the notorious wideawake
tucked under his arm.
“He has come straight from the bush,” her
Ladyship informed everybody (as though she
meant some shrub in the Square garden), “and
just as he is. I call it so sweet of him! You
know you’ll never look so picturesque again,
my dear Duke!”
Olivia followed with the best expression her
frank face could muster. Claude took his
cousin's hand in a sudden hush.
“Where in the world have you been?” broke
from him before them all.
“Been? I’ve been run in,” replied the
Duke, with a smack of his bearded grinning
lips.
“Tea or coffee, Duke?” said Lady Caroline,
all smiling tolerance. “Tea? A cup of tea
for the Duke of St. Osmund's. And where do
you say you have been 2"
“Locked up!” said his Grace. “In choky,
if you like it better!”
Lady Caroline herself led the laugh. The
situation was indeed worthy of her finely


56 MY LORD DUKE
tempered steel, her consummate tact, her in-
stinctive dexterity. Many a grander dame
would have essayed to quell that incriminating
tongue. Not so Lady Caroline Sellwood. She
took her Australian wild bull very boldly by
the horns.
“I do believe,” she cried, “that you are what
we have all of us been looking for — in real
life—all our days. I do believe you are the
shocking Duke of those dreadful melodramas
in the flesh at last! What was your crime?
Ah! I’ve no doubt you cannot tell us!”
“Can I not?” cried the Duke, as Claude
stopped him, unobserved, from pouring his tea
into the saucer. “I’ll tell you all about it,
and perhaps you’ll show me where the crime
comes in, for I’m bothered if I see it yet. All
I did was to have a gallop along one of your
streets; I don’t even know which street it was;
but there’s a round clearing at one end, then a
curve, and then another clearing at the far
end.”
“Regent Street,” murmured Claude.
“That's the name. Well, it was quite early,
there was hardly anybody about, so I thought
surely to goodness there could be no harm in a
gallop; and I had one from clearing to clearing.
Blowed if they didn’t run me in for that!


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 57
They kept me locked up all the morning.
Then they took me before a fat old joker who
did nothing much but wink. That old joker,
though, he let me off, so I’ve nothing agen’
him. He’s a white man, he is. So here I am
at last, having got your invitation to lunch,
ma'am, just half-an-hour ago.”
Sir Joseph Todd had been making fruitless
efforts to rise, unaided, from his chair; he now
caught Claude's arm, and simultaneously, the
eye of the Duke.
“Jumping Moses!” roared Jack; “why, there
he is! I beg your pardon, mister; but who'd
have thought of finding you here?”
“This is pleasing,” muttered Edmund Stubbs,
in the background, to his friend the Impres-
sionist. “I’ve seen the lion and the lamb lie
down here together before to-day. But nothing
like this!”
The Impressionist whipped out a pencil and
bared a shirt-cuff. No one saw him. All eyes
were upon the Duke and the magistrate, who
were shaking hands.
“You have paid me a valuable compliment,”
croaked Sir Joseph gayly. “Of course I
winked! Hadn’t I my Lord Duke's little
peccadillo to wink at 7”
And he bowed himself away under cover of


58 MY LORD DUKE
his joke, which also helped Lady Caroline
enormously. The Duke mentioned the name
by which he would go down to posterity on a
metropolitan charge-sheet. Most people re-
sumed their conversation. A few still laughed.
And the less seriously the whole matter was
taken, the better, of course, for all concerned,
particularly the Duke. Olivia had him in
hand now. And her mother found time to
exchange a few words with Claude Lafont.
“A dear fellow, is he not? So naturall
Such an example in that way to us all! How
many of us would carry ourselves as well in —
in our bush garments?” speculated her Lady-
ship, for the benefit of more ears than Claude's.
Then her voice sank and trembled. “Take him
away, Claude,” she gasped below her breath.
“Take him away!”
“I intend to,” he whispered, nodding, “when
I get the chance.” -
“But not only from here —from town as well.
Carry him off to the Towers! And when you
get him there, for heaven’s sake keep him
there, and take him in hand, and we will all
come down in August to see what you have
done.”
“I’m quite agreeable, of course; but what if
he isn’t 7”


NOT IN THE PROGRAMME 59
“He will be. You can do what you like
with him. I have discovered that already; he
asked at once if you were here, and said how
he liked you. Claude, you are so clever and
so good! If any one can make him presentable,
it is you!” She was wringing her white hands
whiter yet. -
“I’ll do my best, for all our sakes. I must
say I like my material.”
“Oh, he’s a dear fellow!” cried Lady Caro-
line, dropping her hands and uplifting her voice
once more. “So original — in nothing more
than in his moral courage — his superiority to
mere conventional appearances! That is a
lesson —”
Lady Caroline stopped with a little scream.
In common with others, she had heard the high,
shrill mewing of a kitten; but cats were a
special aversion of her Ladyship's.
“What was that?” she cried, tugging in-
stinctively at her skirts.
“Meow!” went the shrill small voice again;
and all eyes fastened upon the Duke of St.
Osmund's, whose ready-made coat-tails were
moving like a bag of ferrets.
The Duke burst into a hearty laugh, and
diving in his coat-tail pocket, produced the
offending kitten in his great fist. Lady Caro-


60 MY LORD DUKE
line Sellwood took a step backward; and be-
cause she did not lead it, there was no laugh
this time from her guests; and because there
was no laugh but his own, the Duke looked
consciously awkward for the first time. In
fact, it was the worst moment yet; the next,
however, Olivia's pink palms were stretched
out for the kitten, and Olivia's laughing voice
was making the sweetest music that ever had
gladdened the heart of the Duke.
“The little darling!” cried the girl with
genuine delight. “Let me have it, do!”
He gave it to her without a word, but with
eyes that clung as fast to her face as the tiny
claws did to her dress. Olivia's attention was
all for the kitten; she was serenely unconscious
of that devouring gaze; but Claude saw it, and
winced. And Lady Caroline saw it too.
“Poor mite!” pursued Olivia, stroking the
bunch of black fur with a cheek as soft.
“What a shame to keep it smothered up in
a stuffy pocket! Are you fond of cats?” she
asked the Duke.
“Am I not! They were my only mates up
the bush. I brought over three besides the
kitten.”
“You brought them from the bush?”
“I did so!”


62 MY LORD DUKE
very kind of you all not to laugh at a fellow.
I’m much obliged to you. I am so. And I
hope we shall know each other better before
long!”
Claude was not ashamed of him then. There
was no truer dignity beneath the ruffles and
periwigs of their ancestors in the Maske pict-
ure-gallery than that of the rude, blunt fellow
who could face modestly and yet kindly a
whole roomful of well-dressed Londoners. It
did not desert him as he shook hands with
Lady Caroline and Olivia. In another moment
the Duke was gone, and of his own accord,
before he had been twenty minutes in the
house. And what remained of that Wednes-
day afternoon fell flat and stale — always ex-
cepting the little formula with which Lady
Caroline Sellwood sped her parting guests.
“Poor fellow,” it ran, “he has roughed it so
dreadfully in that horrible bush! You won’t
know him the next time you see him. Yes, I
assure you, he went straight on board at that
end and came straight to us at this! Not
a day for anything in Melbourne or here.
Actually not one day! I thought it so dear
of him to come as he was. Didn't you?”


CHAPTER V
WITH THE ELECT
THE ragged beard had been trimmed to a
point; the uncouth hair had been cut, sham-
pooed, and invested with a subtle, inoffensive
aroma; and a twenty-five-shilling Lincoln and
Bennett crowned all without palpable incon-
gruity. The brown, chapped neck, on the other
hand, did look browner and rougher than before
in the cold clutch of a gleaming stand-up collar.
And a like contrast was observable between the
ample cuffs of a brand-new shirt, and the Duke's
hands, on whose hirsute backs the yellow freckles
now stood out like half-sovereigns. Jack drew
the line at gloves. On the whole, however, his
docility had passed all praise; he even consented
to burden himself with a most superfluous Inver-
ness cape, all for the better concealment of the
ready-made suit. In fine, a few hours had made
quite a painfully new man of him; yet perhaps
the only real loss was that of his good spirits;
and these he had left, not in any of the shops to
63


64 MY LORD DUKE
which Claude had taken him before dinner, but,
since then, in his own house in Belgrave Square.
Claude had shown him over it between nine
and ten; they were now arm-in-arm on their
way from this errand, and the street-lamps
shone indifferently on the Duke's dejection and
on Claude's relief. He had threatened instant
occupation of his own town-house; he had con-
ceived nightmare hospitalities towards all and
sundry; and had stuck to his guns against argu-
ment with an obstinacy which made Claude's hair
stand on end. Now the Duke had less to say.
He had seen his house. The empty, echoing,
inhospitable rooms, with perhaps a handful of
electric lights freezing out of the darkness as
they entered, had struck a chill to his genial
heart. And Claude knew it as he led the way
to his own cosy chambers; but was reminded
of another thing as he approached them, and
became himself, on the spot, a different man.
He had forgotten the two friends he had in-
vited to come in for a private view of the
large-paper edition. He was reminded of them
by seeing from the street his open window filled
with light; and his manner had entirely altered
when he detained the Duke below, and sought
with elaborate phrases to impress him before-
hand with the transcendent merits of the couple


WITH THE ELECT 65
whom he was about to meet. Jack promptly
offered to go away. He had never heard tell of
Impressionism, and artists were not in his line.
What about the other joker? What did he do?
“Nothing, my dear fellow; he's far too good
a man to do things,” explained Claude, whose
changed speech inclined the other to flight quite
as much as his accounts of the men upstairs.
“The really delicate brains — the most highly
sensitised souls —seldom spend themselves upon
mere creative work. They look on, and possibly
criticise — that is, when they meet with aught
worthy their criticism. My friend, Edmund
Stubbs, is such an one. He has a sensitised soul,
if you likel His artistic standard is too high,
he is too true to his ideals, to produce the im-
perfect. He is full of ideas; but they are too
big for brush, pen, or chisel to express them.
On the other hand, he's a very fountain of in-
spiration, tempered by critical restraint, to many
a man whose name (as my own) is possibly
a household word in Clapham, where poor Ed-
mund's is unknown. Not that I should pity him
on that score; he has a holy scorn for what him-
self would call a “suburban popularity’; and,
indeed, I am not with him in his views as to the
indignity of fame generally. But there, he is a
bright particular star who is content to shine for
F


66 MY LORD DUKE
the favoured few who have the privilege of call-
ing him their friend.”
“You do talk like a book, and no error!” said
the Duke. “I haven’t ever heard you gas on
like that before.”
The bright particular star was discovered in
Claude's easiest chair, with the precious volume
in one hand, and a tall glass, nearly empty, in
the other; the Impressionist was in the act of
replacing the stopper in the whisky-decanter;
and Claude accepted the somewhat redundant
explanation, that they were making themselves
at home, with every sign of approval. Nor was
he slow in introducing his friends; but for once
the Duke was refreshingly subdued, if not shy;
and for the first few minutes the others had their
heads together over the large-paper edition, for
whose “decorations” the draftsman himself had
not the least to say, where all admired. At
length Claude passed the open volume to his
cousin; needless to say it was open at the fron-
tispiece; but the first and only thing that Jack
saw was the author's name in red capitals on the
title-page opposite.
“Claude Lafont!” he read out. “Why, you
don't ever mean—to tell me — that's you, old
brusher?”
Claude smiled and coloured.


WITH THE ELECT 67
“You an author l’’ continued the Duke in a
wide-eyed wonder. “And you never told me !
Well, no wonder you can talk like a book when
you can write one, too! So this is your latest,
is it?”
“The limited large-paper edition,” said Claude.
“Only seventy-five copies printed, and I sign
them all. How does it strike you — physically,
I mean?”
“‘Physically’ is quite pleasing,” murmured
Stubbs; and Claude helped him to more whisky.
Jack looked at the book. The back was of a
pale brown cardboard; the type had a curious,
olden air about it; the paper was thick, and its
edges elaborately ragged. The Duke asked if it
was a new book. It looked to him a hundred
years old, he said, and discovered that he had
paid a pretty compliment unawares.
“There's one thing, however,” he added: “we
could chop leaves as well as that in the back-
blocks!”
The Impressionist grinned; his friend drank
deep, with a corrugated brow; the poet ex-
pounded the beauties of the rough edge, and
Jack gave him back his book.
“I know nothing about it,” said he ; “but still,
I’m proud of you, I am so. And I'm proud,”
he added, “to find myself in such company as


68 MY LORD DUKE
yours, gentlemen; though I don't mind telling
you, if I'd known I’d be the only plain man in
the room I'd never have come upstairs l’”
And the Duke sat down in a corner, with his
knife, his tobacco, and his cutty-pipe, as shy as
a great boy in a roomful of girls. Yet this wore
off, for the conversation of the elect did not,
after all, rarefy the atmosphere to oppression;
indeed, that of the sensitised soul contained
more oaths than Jack had heard from one mouth
since he left the bush, and this alone was enough
to put him at his ease. At the same time he
was repelled, for it appeared to be a character-
istic of the great Stubbs to turn up his nose at
all men; and as that organ was retroussé to
begin with, Jack was forcibly reminded of some
ill-bred, snarling bulldog, and he marvelled at
the hound's reputation. He put in no word,
however, until the conversation turned on
Claude's poems, and a particularly cool, coarse
thing was said of one of them, and Claude only
laughed. Then he did speak up.
“See here, mister,” he blurted out from his
corner. “Could you do as good?”
Stubbs stared at the Duke, and drained his glass.
“I shouldn't try,” was his reply.
“I wouldn't,” retorted Jack. “I just wouldn't,
if I were you.”


WITH THE ELECT 69
Stubbs could better have parried a less indeli-
cate, a less childish thrust; as it was, he reached
for his hat. Claude interfered at once.
“My dear old fellow,” said he to Jack, “you
mustn't mind what my friend Edmund says of
my stuff. I like it. He is always right, for
one thing; and then, only think of the privilege
of having such a critic to tell one exactly what
he thinks.”
Jack looked from one man to the other. The
sincerity of the last speech was not absolutely
convincing, but that of Claude's feeling for his
friend was obvious enough; and, with a laugh,
the Duke put his back against the door. The
apology which he delivered in that position was
in all respects characteristic. It was unneces-
sarily full; it was informed alike by an extrava-
gant good-will towards mankind, and an irritat-
ing personal humility; and it ended, somewhat
to Claude's dismay, with a direct invitation to
both his friends to spend a month at Maske
Towers.
Perhaps these young men realised then, for
the first time, who the rough fellow was, after
all, with whom they had been thrown in con-
tact. At all events the double invitation was
accepted with alacrity; and no more hard things
were said of Claude's lyrics. The flow of soul


70 MY LORD DUKE
was henceforth as uninterrupted as that of the
whisky down the visitors’ throats. And no
further hitch would have occurred had the Im-
pressionist not made that surreptitious sketch
of the Duke, which so delighted his friends.
“Oh, admirable !” cried Claude. “A most
suggestive humouresque !”
“It’ll do,” said Stubbs, the oracle. “It
mightn't appeal to the suburbs, damn them, but
it does to us.” … "
“Grant the convention, and the art is perfect,”
continued Claude, with the tail of his eye on
Jack.
“It is the caricature that is more like than
life,” pursued Stubbs, with a sidelong glance in
the same direction.
Jack saw these looks; but from his corner he
could not see the sketch, nor had he any sus-
picion of its subject. All else that he noted,
was the flush of triumph, or it may have been
whisky, or just possibly both, on the pale,
fringed face of Impressionism. He held out
his hand for the half-sheet of paper on which
the sketch had been made.
“I hope it won't offend you,” exclaimed the
artist, hesitating.
“Offend me ! Why should it? Let's have
a look l’’


WITH THE ELECT 71
And he looked for more than a minute at the
five curves and a beard which had expressed to
quicker eyes the quintessence of his own out-
ward and visible personality. At first he could
make nothing of them; even when an inter-
pretation dawned upon him, his face was puz-
zled as he raised it to the trio hanging on his
words.
“It won’t do, mister,” said the Duke reluc-
tantly. “You’ll never get saplings like them,”
tapping the five curves with his forefinger, “to
hold a nest like that,” putting his thumb on the
beard, “and don't you believe it.”
There was a moment's silence. Then the
Impressionist said thickly:
“Give me that sketch.”
Jack handed it back. In another moment it
was littering the ground in four pieces, and the
door had banged behind the indignant drafts-
Inan.
“What on earth have I done?” cried the
Duke, aghast.
“You have offended Llewellyn,” replied
Claude shortly.
“How 2 By what I said? I'll run after him
this minute and apologise. I never meant to
hurt his feelings. Where's that stove-pipe hat?”
“Let me go,” said Stubbs, getting up. “I


72 MY LORD DURE
understand the creative animal; it is thin-
skinned; but I'll tell our friend what you
say.”
“I wish you would. Tell him I meant no
harm. And fetch him down with you just
whenever you can come.”
“Thanks — that will be very pleasing. I
daresay August will be our best time, but we
shall let you know. I'll put it all right with
Ivor; but these creative asses (saving your
presence, Lafont) never can see a joke.”
“A jokel” cried Jack, when he and Claude
were alone.
“Stubbs is ironical,” said Claude severely.
“Look here,” said the Duke, “what are you
givin' us, old boy? Seems to me you clever
touchers have been getting at a cove between
you. Where does this joke come in, eh?”
And his good faith was so obvious that
Claude picked up the four quarters of torn
paper, fitted them together, and entered upon
yet another explanation. This one, however,
was somewhat impatiently given and received.
The Duke professed to think his likeness ex-
ceedingly unlike — when, indeed, he could be
got to see his own outlines at all—and Claude
disagreeing, a silence fell between the pair.
Jack sought to break it by taking off his collar


74 MY LORD DUKE
of the hole; as for my own house, it gave me
the fair hump the moment I put my nose in-
side; and I’d be on to make tracks up the
bush any day you like — if it weren't for one
thing.”
“What's that,” said Claude, “if it's a fair
question?”
The other concealed his heightened colour
by relighting his pipe and puffing vigorously.
“I’ll tell you,” said he: “it’s that old girl
and — what's the daughter's name again?”
“Olivia.”
“Olivia. A beautiful name for a beautiful
girl! She's all that and more.”
“And much more.”
“You see, she's as good inside as out; she
has a kind heart.”
“I have always found it so,” said Claude,
“and I’ve known her since she was a child.”
The two kinsmen, who had been so wide
apart a few minutes since, were now more than
ever mutually akin. They drew their chairs
together; but the touchstone was deep down
in either heart.
“You knew her when she was a child!” re-
peated the Duke in a kind of awe. “Yes; and
I daresay, now, you used to play with her, and
perhaps take her on your knee, and even pull


WITH THE ELECT 75
her hair and kiss her in them old days. Yet
there you sit smoking cigarettes' "
His own pipe was out. He was in a reverie.
Claude also had his own thoughts.
“The one thing was this,” said the Duke at
length: “would the old woman and her daugh-
ter come to see us up the country?”
Claude was torn two ways. The Towers
scheme was no longer his first anxiety. He re-
turned to it by an effort.
“They would,” he said. “Lady Caroline
told me so. They would come like a shot in
August. She said so herself.”
“Would you put me up to things in the
meantime? Would you be showing me the
ropes?”
“The verything I should like to do, so far as
I am able.” -
“Then we'll start to-morrow—I mean to-day.
That settles it. And yet xx
“Out with it,” said Claude, smiling.
“Well, I will. I mean no harm, you under-
stand. Who am I to dare to look at her? Only
I do feel as if that girl would do me a deal of
good down there—you know, in making me
more the sort of chap for my billet. But if
she's gone and got a sweetheart, he might very
easily object; so I just thought I'd like to know.”


CHAPTER VI
A NEW LEAF
“THE Duke of St. Osmund's and Mr. Claude
Lafont left town yesterday for Maske Towers,
the family seat near Devenholme.” So ran the
announcement in the morning papers of the next
day but one. And the Duke was actually ex-
ploring his inheritance when it appeared.
Overnight the pair had arrived too late to see
much more than the lofty, antique hall and the
respective rooms in which they were to sup and
sleep; but the birds awoke Jack in the early
morning, and he was up and out before seven
o'clock.
As yet he had seen little that attracted him
within, and at this hour he felt a childish horror
of the dark colossal canvases overhanging the
grand staircase and the hall; like the sightless
suits of armour standing blind sentinel below,
they froze him with the look of lifeless life about
the grim, gigantic figures. He was thankful to
see one of the great double doors standing open
77


80 MY LORD DUKE
gilt hands of a clock just visible beyond. On
the instant he recovered from his enchantment,
and set off for the shrubbery at a brisk walk;
for he had heard much of the Maske stables,
and evidently there they were.
As he was in the shrubbery, the stable clock
struck eight after a melodious chime sadly spoilt
by the incessant barking of some small dog;
the last stroke reverberated as he emerged, and
the dog had the morning air to itself, to murder
with its hideous clamour. But the Duke now
saw the exciting cause, and it excited him; for
he had come out opposite the stable-yard gates,
which were shut, but from the top of which,
with its lame paw lifted, a vertical tail, and a
back like a hedgehog asleep, his own yellow cat
spat defiance at an unseen foe. And between
the barks came the voice of a man inciting the
dog with a filthy relish.
“Set him off, Pickle ! Now's your time. Try
again. Oh, blow me, if you can’t you can't,
and I'll have to lend you a hand.”
And one showed over the gate with the word,
but the fingers grabbed the air, for Jack had
snatched his pet in the nick of time. He was
now busy with the ring of the latch, fumbling
it in his fury. The breath came in gusts
through his set teeth and bristling beard. One


A NEW LEAF 81
hand clasped the yellow cat in a fierce caress;
the other knotted into a fist as the gate flew
open.
In the yard a hulking, smooth-faced fellow,
whose pendulous under-lip had dropped in dis-
may, changed his stare for a grin when he saw
the Duke, who was the smaller as well as the
rougher-looking man of the two; for he had not
only come out without his collar, which he dis-
carded whenever he could; but he had clapped
on the old bush wideawake because Claude was
not up to stop him. -
“Well, and who are you?” began the other
cheerfully.
“You take off your. coat and I'll show you,”
replied Jack, with a blood-thirsty indistinctness.
“I’m a better man than you are, whoever I am;
at least we'll have a see ' "
“Oh, will we?” said the fellow. “And you're
the better man, are you? What do you think?”
he added, turning to a stable-boy who stood
handy with thin brown arms akimbo, and
thumbs in his belt.
“I wonder ’oo’e thinks’e is w'en 'e's at 'ome?”
said the lad.
Jack never heard him. He had spied the
saddle-room door standing open. In an instant
he was there, with the small dog yelping at his
G


82 MY LORD DUKE
heels; in another, he had locked the door be-
tween cat and dog, pocketed the key, and re-
turned to his man, stripping off his own coat
and waistcoat as he came. He flung them into
a corner, and after them his bush hat.
“Now let's see you take off yours! If you
don’t,” added Jack, with a big bush oath, “I’ll
have to hide you with it on 1"
But man and boy had been consulting while
his back was turned, and Jack now found him-
self between the two of them; not that he gave
the lad a thought.
“Look you here; I'll tell you who I am,” said
the man. “My name's Matt Hunt, and Matt
can fight, as you wouldn't need telling if you
belonged to these parts. But he don't take on
stray tramps like you; so, unless you hook it
slippy, we're just going to run you out o' this
yard quicker than you come in.”
“Not till I’ve shown you how to treat dumb
animals »
“Then here goes l’”
And with that the man Hunt seized one of
Jack's arms, while the stable-boy nipped the
other from behind, and made a dive at Jack's
pocket for the saddle-room key. But a flat-
footed kick sent the lad sprawling without harm-
ing him; and the man was driven so hard under


A NEW LEAF 83
the nose that he too fell back, bearded with
blood.
“Come on l’ roared Jack. “And you, my
boy, keep out of the light unless you want a
whipping yourself!”
He was rolling up the sleeves from his tanned
and furry arms. Hunt followed suit, a cascade
of curses flowing with his blood; he had torn
off his coat, and a wrist-button tinkled on the
cement as he caught up Jack in his prepara-
tions. His arms were thicker than the bush-
man's, though white and fleshy. Hunt was also
the heavier weight, besides standing fully six
feet, as against the Duke's five-feet-nine when
he held himself up. Nor was there any lack of
confidence in the dripping, hairless, sinister face,
when the two men finally squared up.
They fell to work without niggling, for Jack
rushed in like a bull, leading most violently with
his left. It was an inartistic start; the big man
was not touched; but neither did he touch Jack,
who displayed, at all events, a quick pair of legs.
Yet it was this start that steadied the Duke. It
showed him that Hunt was by no means un-
skilled in the use of his hands; and it put out of
his head everything but the fight itself, so that
he heard no more the small tike barking outside
the saddle-room door, hitherto his angriest goad.


84 MY LORD DUKE
Some cool sparring ensued. Then Hunt let out
from the shoulder, but the blow was avoided
with great agility; then Jack led off again, but
with a lighter touch, and this time he drew
his man. The blows of the next minute it
was impossible to follow. They were given and
returned with enormous virulence. And there
was no end to them until the big man tripped
and fell.
“See here,” said Jack, standing over him;
“that was my cat, and I’d got to go for you.
But if you’ve had enough of this game, so have
I, and we'll cry quits.”
He was sucking a cut lip as he spoke. The
other spat out a tooth and blundered to his feet.
“Quits, you scum ? Wait a bit !”
And they were at hotter work than ever.
Meanwhile the yard was filling with stable-
men and gardeners, who were in time to see
Hunt striding down on his unknown adversary,
and the latter retreating in good order; but the
stride quickened, ending in a rush, which the
Duke eluded so successfully that he was able to
hit Hunt hard on the ear as he passed.
It was afterwards a relief to the spectators to
remember how they had applauded this effort.
To the Duke their sympathy was a comfort at
the time; though he no more suspected that his


86 My LoRD DUKE
“Yes, that's right,” said Jack, with a nod to
the company. “So now you all know what to
expect for cruelty to cats, or any other dumb
animals; and don't you forget it!”
He put on his coat and went over to the sad-
dle-room. Claude followed him, still at a loss
for words. And Hunt's dog went into a wild
ecstasy as the key was put into the lock.
“Hold him,” said Jack. “The dog's all right;
and I lay his master’ll think twice before he sets
him on another cat o' mine.”
“Come away,” said Claude hoarsely; “for
all our sakes, come away before you make bad
worse!”
“Well, I will. Only hold him tight. That's
it. Poor little puss, then — poor old Living-
stone ! Now I’m ready; come along.”
But Hunt was in their path; and Jack's
heart smote him for the mischief he had done,
though his own lower lip was swollen like a
sausage.
“So you're the new Duke of St. Osmund's,”
said Hunt, with a singular deliberation. “I
wasn't to know that, of course; no, by gosh,
not likely!”
“Well, you know it now,” was the reply.
“And —and I’m sorry I had to hit you so hard,
Hunt!”


A NEW LEAF 87.
“Oh, don't apologise,” said Hunt, with a
sneer that showed a front tooth missing. “Stop
a bit, though; I'm not so sure,” he added, with
a glance of evil insight.
“Sure of what?”
“Whether you oughtn't to apologise for not
hitting a man of your own age l’”
“Take no notice of him,” whispered Claude
strenuously; but he obtained none himself.
“Nonsense,” said the Duke; “you're the
younger man, at all events.”
“Am I? I was born in '59, I was.”
“Then according to all accounts you're the
younger man by four years.”
“By—four-years,” repeated Hunt slowly.
“So you was born in '55. Thank you; I shall
make a note of that, you may be sure — your
Grace l’”
And Hunt was gone ; they heard him whis-
tling for his tike when he was himself out of
sight, and the dog went at last. Then the
coachman stepped forward, cap in hand.
“If you please, your Grace, that man was here
without my knowledge. He's always putting
in his nose where he isn't wanted; I've shifted
him out of this before to-day; and with your
Grace's permission, I'll give orders not to have
him admitted again.”


88 MY LORD DUKE
“Who is he 7” said Jack. “A tenant or
what?”
“Only a tenant, your Grace. Matt Hunt, they
call him, of the Lower Farm; but it might be of
Maske Towers, by the way he goes on 1"
“He took a mighty interest in my age,” re-
marked the Duke. “I never asked to look at
his fangs—but I think you'll find one of them
somewhere about the yard. No; I'm not fond
of fighting, my lads. Don't you run away with
that idea. But there's one thing I can't and
won't suffer, and that's cruelty to animals. You
chaps in the stables recollect that ' And so
good-morning to you all.”
Claude led the way through the shrubbery in
a deep depression. The guilty Duke took his arm
with one hand, while with the other he hugged
the yellow cat that was eying the shrubbery
birds over its master's shoulder, much as the
terrier had eyed it.
“My dear old boy,” said Jack, “I’m as sorry
as sorry for what's happened. But I couldn't
help myself. Look at Livingstone; he'd have
been a stiff'un by this time if I hadn't turned
up when I did; so naturally there was a row.
Still I'm sorry. I know it's a bad beginning;
and I remember saying in the train that I'd turn
over a new leaf down here. Well, and so I will


A NEW LEAF 89
if you give me time. Don't judge me by this
morning, Claude. Give me another chance;
and for God's sake don't look like that l”
“I can't help it, Jack,” replied Claude, with
a weary candour. “I’m prepared for anything
now. You make me a year older every day.
How do I know what you'll do next? I think
the best thing I can do is to give you up as
a bad job.”


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 91
fully respectful tone which he had at first
employed towards old Stebbings, the butler.
Stebbings had been very many years in the
family. The deference inspired by his vener-
able presence was natural enough in the new
Duke of St. Osmund's; but it shocked and dis-
tressed Stebbings's feudal soul. He complained
to Claude, and he had not to complain twice.
For Jack discovered a special and a touching
eagerness to master the rudiments of etiquette;
though in other respects (which certainly mat-
tered less) he was still incorrigible.
His social “crammer” could no more cure
him of his hatred of a collar than of his liking
for his cats. The latter were always with him;
the former, unhappily, was not. In these things
the Duke was hopelessly unregenerate; he was
a stockman still at heart, and a stockman he
threatened to remain. The soft summer nights
were nothing to the nights in the bush; the
fleecy English sky was not blue at all after the
skies of Riverina; and the Duke's ideal of a
man was “my old boss.” Claude heard of “my
old boss” until he was sick of the words, which
constituted a gratuitous reminder of a position
most men would have been glad to forget. Yet
there was much to be thankful for. There were
no more scenes such as the Duke's set-to in


92 MY LORD DUKE
his own stable-yard with one of his own tenants.
At least nothing of the sort happened again
until Jack's next collision with Matthew Hunt.
And that was not yet.
Matthew was from home when the Duke,
making a round of the estate, with his agent,
visited the Lower Farm in its turn. Old Hunt,
Matthew's besotted father, received them in the
kitchen with a bloodshot stare and little else,
for drink had long dimmed his forces. Not so
the old man's daughter-in-law, Matthew's wife,
who showed the visitors all over the farm in a
noiseless manner that made Jack feel uneasy,
because he never knew when she was or was not
at his elbow. Besides, he could not forget the
thrashing he had given her husband, nor yet
suppose that she had forgotten it either. The
woman was of a gross, type strangely accentu-
ated by her feline quietude. She had a continual
smile, and sly eyes that dropped when they en-
countered those of the Duke, whom they fol-
lowed sedulously at all other moments. Jack
seemed to know it, too; at all events he was
not sorry to turn his back upon the Lower
Farm.
“A rum lot, the Hunts l’’ he said at lunch.
“They're about the only folks here that I
haven't cottoned to on the spot. I shall get


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 93
on fine with all the others. But I can’t suffer
those Hunts l’”
“There's no reason why you should suffer
them,” observed the agent, in his well-bred
drawl; for he had a more aristocratic manner
than Claude himself. “They have the best
farm on the property, and they pay the smallest
rent. You should think over my suggestion of
this morning.”
“No, no,” said the Duke. “He wants me to
double the rent, Claude, and clear them out if
they won't pay. I can't do it.”
“Well, no; I hardly think you can,” assented
Claude. “Oddly enough, my grandfather had
quite a weakness for the Hunts; and then they
are very old tenants. That hoary-headed Silenus,
whom you saw, was once in the stables here; so
was his son after him, in my time; and the old
man's sister was my grandmother's maid. You
can't turn out people like that ea itinere, so to
speak — I mean to say in a hurry. It's too old
a connection altogether.”
“Exactly what they trade upon,” said the
agent. “They have been spoilt for years, and
they expect his Grace to go on spoiling them.
I should certainly get rid of the whole gang.”
“No, mister—no!” declared the Duke.
“Claude is right. I can't do it. I might if


94 MY LORD DUKE
I hadn't given that fellow a hiding. After that
I simply can’t; it would look too bad.”
The agent said no more, but his look and shrug
were perhaps neither politic nor polite. A strap-
ping sportsman himself, and a person of some
polish into the bargain, he was in a position, as
it were, to look down on Claude with one eye,
and on the Duke with the other. And he did
so with a freedom extraordinary in one of his
wisdom and understanding.
“One of these days,” said Jack, “I shall give
that joker his cheque. He's not my notion of
an overseer at all; if he's too good for the billet
let him roll up his swag and clear out; if he
isn't, let him treat the bosses as a blooming
overseer should.”
“Why, what's the head and chief of his offend-
ing now?” asked Claude; for this was one night
in the billiard-room, when the agent had been
making an example of both cousins at pyramids;
it was after he was gone, and while the Duke was
still tearing off his collar.
“What has he said to-night?” continued
the poet, less poetically. “I heard nothing
offensive.”
“You wouldn’t,” said the Duke ; “you're
such a good sort yourself. You'd never see
when a chap was pulling your leg, but I see


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 95
fast enough, and I won't have it. What did he
say to-night? He talked through his neck when
we missed our shots. That about billiards in
the bush I didn't mind; me and the bush, we're
fair game; but when he got on to your poetry,
old man, I felt inclined to run my cue through
his gizzard. “A poet's shot, he says, when you
put yourself down; and “you should write a
sonnet about that,’ when you got them three
balls in together. I don't say it wasn't a fluke.
That has nothing at all, to do with it. The
way the fellow spoke is what I weaken on. He
wouldn't have done for my old boss, and I’m
blowed if he'll do for me. One of these days I
shall tell him to come outside and take his coat
off; and, by the looks of him, I shouldn’t be a
bit surprised to see him put me through.”
Claude's anxiety overcame every other feeling.
He implored the Duke not to make another scene,
least of all with such a man as the agent, whose
chaff, he truly protested, did not offend him
in the least. Jack shook his head, and was
next accused of being more sensitive about the
“wretched poems” than was the poet himself.
This could not have been. But Claude was not
so very far wrong.
His slender book was being widely reviewed,
or rather “noticed,” for the two things are not


96 MY LORD DUKE
quite the same. The “notices,” on the whole,
were good and kind, but “uninstructed,” so
Claude said with a sigh; nevertheless, he ap-
peared to obtain a sneaking satisfaction from
their perusal; and as for Jack, he would read
them aloud, capering round the room and shak-
ing Claude by both hands in his delighted
enthusiasm. To him every printed compliment
was a loud note blown from the trumpet of fame
into the ears of all the world. He would hear
not a word against the paper in which it ap-
peared, but attributed every qualifying remark
of Claude's to the latter's modesty, and each
favourable paragraph to some great responsible
critic voicing the feeling of the country in the
matter of these poems. Claude himself, how-
ever, though frequently gratified, was not
deceived; for the sweetest nothings came in-
variably from the provincial press; and he at
least knew too much to mistake a “notice” for
a “real review.”
The real reviews were a sadly different matter.
There were very few of them, in the first place;
their scarcity was worse than their severity.
And they were generally very severe indeed;
or they did not take the book seriously, which,
as Claude said, was the unkindest cut of all.
“Only show me the skunk who wrote that,”


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 97
exclaimed Jack one morning, looking over
Claude's shoulder as he opened his press-cut-
tings, “and I'll give him the biggest hiding
ever he had in his life l’”
Another critic, the writer of a really sympa-
thetic and exhaustive review, the Duke desired
to invite to Maske Towers by the next post,
“because,” said Jack, “he must be a real good
sort, and we ought to know him.”
“I do know him,” said Claude, with a groan,
for he had thought of keeping the fact to him-
self; “I know him to my cost. He owes me
money. This is payment on account. Oh, I
am no good! I must give it up! Ignorance
and interest alone are at my back! Genuine
enthusiasm there is none !”
There was Jack's. But was that genuine?
The Duke himself was not sure. He meant it
to ring true, but then he meant to appreciate
the poems, and of many of them he could make
little enough in his secret soul.
All this, however, was but one side of the
quiet life led by the cousins at Maske Towers;
and it had but one important effect—that of
sowing in Claude's heart a loyalty to Jack not
unworthy of Jack's loyalty to him.
There were other subjects of discussion upon
which the pair were by no means at one. There
H


98 MY LORD DUKE
was Jack's open failure to appreciate the mar-
ble halls, the resonant galleries, the darkling
pictures of his princely home; and there was
the scatter-brained scheme by which he ulti-
mately sought to counteract the oppressive
grandeur of his new surroundings.
It was extremely irritating, especially to a
man like Claude; but the proudest possessions
of their ancestors (whose superlative taste and
inferior morals had been the byword of so many
ages) were those which appealed least to that
blameless Goth, the ninth Duke of St. Osmund's.
The most glaring case in point was that of the
pictures, which alone would make the world-
wide fame of a less essentially noble seat than
Maske Towers. But Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens,
Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Angeletti
Wernet, and Claude Lorrain—all these were mere
names, and new ones, to Happy Jack. Claude
Lafont, pointing to magnificent examples of the
work of one Old Master after another, made his
observations with bated breath, as well he might,
for where is there such another private collec-
tion? Jack, however, was not impressed; he
was merely amazed at Claude, and his remarks
in the picture-gallery are entirely unworthy of
reproduction. In the State Apartments he was
still more trying. He spoke of having the


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 99
ancient tapestries (after Raphael's Cartoons)
taken out and “well shaken,” which, as Claude
said, would have reduced them to immediate
atoms. And he threatened to have the painted
ceilings whitewashed without delay.
“Aurora Banishing Night, eh?” he cried, with
horizontal beard and upturned eyes. “She'd
jolly soon banish my night, certainly; it should.
be, banishing sleep! And all those naked little
nippers! They ought to be papered over, for
decency's sake; and that brute of a bed, who
would sleep in it, I should like to know? Not
me. Not much It must be twenty-foot high
and ten-foot wide; it gives me the hump to look
at it, and the ceilings give it me worse. See
here, Claude, we'll lock up these State Apart-
ments, as you call them, and you shall keep
the key. I’m full of 'em; they'll give me bad
dreams as it is.”
They were not, however, the only apartments
of which the Duke disapproved; the suite which
had been done up entirely for his own use,
under Claude's direction, did not long commend
itself to the ex-stockman. Everything was far
too good for him and his cats; they were not
accustomed to such splendour; it made them
all four uncomfortable—so Jack declared after
taking Claude's breath away with the eccentric


100 MY LORD DUKE
plan on which he had set his heart. And for
the remainder of their solitary companionship
each man had his own occupation; the Duke
preparing more congenial quarters for himself
and the cats; and Claude, with Jack's permis-
sion and the agent's skilled advice, superintend-
ing the making of private golf-links for Mr.
Sellwood's peculiar behoof. For the Home Sec-
retary had promised to join the Maske party, for
the week-ends at any rate, until (as he expressed
it) the Government “holed out.”
That party was now finally arranged. The
Frekes were coming with the Sellwoods, and
the latter family were to have the luxurious
suite which the Duke himself disdained. This
was his Grace's own idea. Moreover, he inter-
ested himself personally in the right ordering
of the rooms during the last few days; but
this he kept to himself until the eleventh hour;
in fact, until he was waiting for the drag to
come round, which he was himself going to tool
over to Devenholme to meet his guests. It was
then that certain unexpected misgivings led
Jack to seek out his cousin, in order to take
him to see what he had done.
For Claude had shown him what he was doing.
He was producing a set of exceedingly harmless
verses, “To Olivia released from Mayfair,” of


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 101
which the Duke had already heard the rough
draft. The fair copy was in the making even
now; in the comparatively small room, at one
end of the library, that Jack had already christ-
ened the Poet's Corner.
Claude wiped his pen with characteristic care,
and then rose readily enough. He followed Jack
down the immensely long, galleried, book-lined
library, through a cross-fire of coloured lights
from the stained-glass windows, and so to the
stairs. Overhead there was another long walk,
through corridor after corridor, which had always
reminded Jack of the hotel in town. But at
last, in the newly decorated wing, the Duke took
a key from his pocket and put it in a certain
door. And now it was Claude who was reminded
of the hotel; for a most striking atmospheric
change greeted him on the threshold; only this
time it was not a gust of heat, but the united
perfume of many flowers, that came from within.
The room was fairly flooded with fresh roses.
It was as though they had either blown through
the open window, or fallen in a miraculous shower
from the dainty blue ceiling. They pranked the
floor in a fine disorder. They studded the table
in tiny vases. They hid the mantelpiece, em-
bedded in moss; from the very grate below, they
peeped like fairy flames, breathing fragrance in-


102 MY LORD DUKE
stead of warmth; and some in falling seemed to
have caught in the pictures on the walls, so art-
fully had they been arranged. Only the white
narrow bed had escaped the shower. And in
the midst of this, his handiwork, stood the Duke,
and blushed like the roses themselves.
“Whose room is this?” asked Claude, though
he knew so well.
“Olivia's — I should say Miss Sellwood's.
You see, old man, you were writing these aw-
fully clever verses for her; so I felt I should
like to have something ready too.”
“Your poem is the best!” exclaimed Claude,
with envious, sparkling eyes. And then he sighed.
“Oh, rot!” said Jack, who was only too thank-
ful for his offering to receive the cachet of
Claude's approval. “All I wanted was to keep
my end up, too. Look here. What do you
think of this?”
And he took from a vase on the dressing-
table an enormous white bouquet, that opened
Claude's eyes wider than before.
“This is for her, too; I wanted to consult
you about it,” pursued Jack. “Should I leave
it here for her, or should I take it down to the
station and present it to her there 2. Or at din-
ner to-night? I want to know just what you
think.”


THE DUKE'S PROGRESS 103
“No, not at dinner,” replied Claude; “nor
yet at the station.”
“Not at all, you mean l I see it in your
face l" cried the Duke so that Claude could
not answer him. “But why not?” he added
vehemently. “Where does the harm come in 2
It's only a blooming nosegay. What's wrong
with it?”
“Nothing,” was the reply, “only it might
embarrass Olivia.”
“Make her uncomfortable?”
“Well, yes; it would be rather marked, you
know. A bouquet like that is only fit for a
bride.”
“I don’t see it,” said Jack, much crestfallen;
“still, if that's so, it's just as well to know it.
There was no harm meant. I wasn't thinking
of any rot of that kind. However, we don't
want to make her uncomfortable; that wasn't
the idea at all; so the bouquet's off—like me.
Come and let me tool you as far as the boundary
fence. I want to show you how we drive four
horses up the bush.”
The exhibition made Claude a little nervous;
there was too much shouting at the horses for
his taste, and too much cracking of the whip.
Jack could crack a whip better than any man
in his own stables. But he accepted Claude's


104 MY LORD DURE
criticism with his usual docility, and dropped
him at the gates with his unfailing nod of pure
good-humour.
There he sat on the box, in loose rough
tweeds of a decent cut, and with the early
August sun striking under the brim of a per-
fectly respectable straw hat, but adding little
to the broad light of his own honest, beam-
ing countenance. He waved his whip, and
Claude his hand. Then the whip cracked—
but only once — and the poet strolled back to
his verses, steeped in thought. He had done
his best. His soul divined vaguely what the
result might mean to him. But his actual
thoughts were characteristically permissible ;
he was merely wondering what Lady Caroline
and Olivia Sellwood would say now.


106 MY LORD DUKE
Jack's imagination. He was grieved and dis-
appointed, but still more was he ashamed. He
had taken a liberty. He had alienated his
friend. Thus he blamed himself, with bitter,
wordless thoughts, and would then fall back
upon his disappointment. His feelings were a
little mixed. One moment she was not all that
he had thought her; the next, she was more
than all. She was more beautiful. Often he
had tried to recall her face, and tried in vain,
having seen her but once before, and then only
for a few minutes. Now he perceived that his
first impression, blurred and yet dear to him as
it had been, had done but meagre justice to
Olivia. He had forgotten the delicate dark
eyebrows, so much darker than the hair. The
girl's radiant colouring had also escaped him.
It was like the first faint flush of an Austra-
lian dawn. Yet he had missed it in June, just
as he had missed the liquid hazel of her eyes;
their absolute honesty was what he remem-
bered best; and, by a curious irony, that frank,
fine look was the very one which she denied him
now.
And so it was from the Friday evening, when
the Sellwoods arrived, to the Monday morning
when duty recalled the Home Secretary to St.
Stephen's. He obeyed the call in no statesman-


108 MY LORD DUKE
him with a rather oppressive kindness, and that
he would much sooner have had half-a-dozen
words from Olivia, such as the first she had
ever spoken to him.
And now the girl was unhappy; it was plain
enough, even to his untutored eye; and he
stepped forward with the determination of im-
proving her spirits, without thinking of his own,
which were not a little flat.
“You must find it dull up the country, Miss
Sellwood, after London,” began Jack, not per-
haps in his most natural manner. “I — I wish
to goodness you'd tell us of anything we could
do to amuse you !”
“You are very good,” replied Olivia, “but I
don't require to be amused like a child. Thanks
all the same. As to finding the country dull,
I never appreciate it so much as after a season
in town.”
She was not looking at the Duke, but beyond
him into the hall. And encountering no other
eyes there, her own grew softer, as did her tone,
even as she spoke.
“You know this old place off by heart, Miss
Sellwood, I expect?” pursued Jack, who had
taken off his straw hat in her presence, being
in doubt as to whether the portico ranked in-
doors or out.


THE OLD ADAM 109
“Oh, well, I have stayed here pretty often,
you know,” said Olivia. “What do you think
of the place?”
“I can't hardly say. I've never seen any-
thing else like it. It's far too good, though, for
a chap like me; it's all so grand.”
“I have sometimes felt it a little too grand,”
the girl ventured to observe.
“So have I1" cried Jack. “You can’t think
how glad I am to hear you say that. It's my
own feeling right down to the ground !”
“I don't mean to be rude,” continued Olivia
confidentially, seeing that they were still unob-
served, “but I have often felt that I wouldn't
care to live here altogether.”
“No?” said the Duke, in a new tone; he felt
vaguely dashed, but his manner was rather one
of apologetic sympathy.
“No,” she repeated; “shall you like it?”
“Can't say. I haven't weakened on it yet,
though it is too fine and large for a fellow.
Shall I tell you what I've done? I've fixed up
a little place for myself outside, where I can go
whenever I get full up of the homestead here.
I wonder—if it isn't too much to ask—whether
you would let me show you the little spot I
mean?”
“Where is it?”


110 My LoRD DUKE
“In the pines yonder, on the far side o' the
tank.”
“The tank | *
“We call 'em tanks in Australia. I meant
the lake. I could row you across, Miss Sell-
wood, in a minute, if only you'd let me!” And
he met her doubtful look with one of frank,
simple-hearted, irresistible entreaty.
“Come on l’” said Olivia suddenly; and as she
went, she never looked behind; for she seemed
to feel her mother's eyes upon her from an upper
window, and the hot shame of their certain ap-
proval made her tingle from head to foot. So
she trod the close, fine, sunlit grass as far as
possible from her companion's side. And he,
falling back a little, was enabled to watch her
all the way.
Olivia was very ordinarily attired. She wore
a crisp white blouse, speckled with tiny scarlet
spots, and a plain skirt of navy blue, just short
enough to give free play to the small brown shoes
whose high heels the Duke had admired in the
portico. Two scarlet bands, a narrow and a
broad, encircled her straw hat and her waist,
with much the same circumference: and yet this
exceedingly average costume struck Jack as the
most delicious thing imaginable of its kind. He
corrected another impression before they reached
*


THE OLD A DAM 111
the lake. Olivia was taller than he had thought;
she was at least five-feet-six; and she carried her
slim, trim figure in a fine upstanding fashion
that took some of the roundness out of his own
shoulders as he noted it this August morning.
“It's the back-block bend,” he remarked ellip-
tically, in the boat.
His way with the oars was inelegant enough,
without a pretence at feathering; but it was
quite effectual; and Olivia, in the stern-sheets,
had her back still presented to the Argus-eyes
of the Towers. She answered him with a
puzzled look, as well she might, for he had done
no more than think aloud.
“What is that?” she said. “And what are
the back-blocks; and what do you mean?” for
her puzzled look had lifted on a smile.
“I was thinking of my round shoulders. You
get them through being all your time in the
saddle, up in the back-blocks. All the country
in Riverina — that is, all the fenced country—
is split up into ten-mile blocks. And the back-
blocks are the farthest from the rivers and from
civilisation. So that's why they call it the back-
block bend; it came into my head through see-
ing you. I never saw anybody hold themselves
so well, Miss Sellwood—if it isn't too like my
cheek to say sol”


112 MY LORD DUKE
The keel grounded as he spoke, and Olivia, as
he handed her out, saw the undulating battle-
ments and toppling turrets of the olden pile
upside-down in the tremulous mirror of the
lake. A moment later the pine-trees had closed
around her; and, sure enough, in a distant win-
dow, Lady Caroline Sellwood lowered her opera-
glasses with a sigh of exceeding great content-
ment.
“So you haven't forgotten your old life yet,”
said the girl, as they stepped out briskly across
the shortening shadows of the pines. “I wish
you would tell me something about it ! I have
heard it said that you lived in ever such a little
hut, away by yourself in the wilderness.”
“I did so; and in a clump of pines the dead
spit of these here,” said Jack, with a relish.
“When I saw these pines you can’t think how
glad I was They were like old friends to me;
they made me feel at home. You see, Miss Sell-
wood, that old life is the only one I ever knew,
bar this; often enough it seems the reallest of
the two. Most nights I dream I'm out there
again; last night, for instance, we were lamb-
marking. A nasty job, that; I was covered with
blood from head to heels, and I was just count-
ing the poor little beggars' tails, when one of
the dead tails wriggled in my hand, and blowed


THE OLD A DAM 113
if it wasn't Livingstone's No, there's no for-
getting the old life; I was at it too long; it's
this one that's most like a dream.”
“And the hut,” said Olivia, with a rather wry
face; “what sort of a place was that?”
“I’ll show you,” replied the Duke, in what
struck the other as a superfluously confidential
tone. “It was a little bit of a place, all one
room, with a galvanised iron roof and mother-
earth for floor. It was built with the very pines
that had been felled to make a clearing for the
hut: so many uprights, and horizontal slabs in
between. A great square hearth and chimney
were built out at one end, like the far end of a
church; and over my bunk I'd got a lot of pict-
ures from the Australasian Sketcher just stuck
up anyhow; and if you weren't looking, you
knocked your head against the ration-bags that
hung from the cross-beams. You slept inside,
but you kept your bucket and basin on a
bench —”
“Good heavens !” cried Olivia. And she
stood rooted to the ground before a clearing and
a hut which exactly tallied with the Duke's
description. The hut was indeed too new, the
maker's stamp catching the eye on the galvan-
ised roofing; and, in the clearing, the pine-
stumps were still white from the axe ; but the
I


114 MY LORD DUKE
essentials were the same, even to the tin basin
on the bench outside the door, with a bucket of
water underneath. As for the wooden chimney,
Olivia had never seen such a thing in her life;
yet real smoke was leaking out of it into the
pale blue sky.
“Is this a joke or a trick?” asked the girl,
looking suspiciously on Jack. *
“Neither; it's meant for the dead image of
my old hut up the bush; and it's the little place
I’ve fixed up for myself, here on the run, that I
wanted to show you.”
“You’ve had it built during these last few
weeks?”
“Under my own eye; and bits of it with my
own hand. Old Claude thought it sheer cussed-
ness, I know; perhaps you will, too; but come
in, and have a look for yourself.”
And unlocking the padlock that secured it,
he opened the door and stood aside for the
young girl to enter. Olivia did so with alacrity;
her first amazement had given way to undi-
luted interest; and the Duke followed her,
straw hat in hand. There was a tantalising
insufficiency of light within. Two small win-
dows there were, but both had been filled with
opaque folds of sackcloth in lieu of glass; yet
the Duke pointed to them, as might his ances-


THE OLD ADAM 115
tors to the stained-glass lights in chapel and
library, with peculiar pride; and, indeed, his
strange delight in the hut, who cared so little
for the Towers close at hand, made Olivia
marvel when she came to think about it.
Meanwhile she found everything as she had
heard it described in the Australian hut, with
one exception: there were no ration-bags to
knock one's head against, because nobody made
meals here. Also the pictures over the bunk
were from the 111ustrated London News, not from
the Sketcher, which Jack had been unable to
obtain in England; and they were somewhat
unconvincingly clean and well-arranged. But
the bunk itself was all that it might have been
in the real bush; for it was covered over with
Jack's own old blanket; whereon lay a purring,
yellow ball, like a shabby sand-bank in a sea of
faded blue.
“So this is Livingstone !” exclaimed the girl,
stooping to scratch that celebrity's head.
“Yes; and there's old Tom and Black Maria
in front of the fire. I lock them all three up
during the day, for it isn't so like the bush in
some ways as it is in others. They might get
stolen any day, with so many people about; that's
the worst of the old country; there was no other
camp within five miles of me, on Carara.”


116 MY LORD DUKE
“It must have been dreadfully lonely l’”
“You get used to it. And then every few
months you would tramp into the homestead
and — and speak to the boss,” said Jack, chang-
ing his mind and his sentence as he remembered
how he had once shocked Claude Lafont.
Olivia took notice of the cats, at which Jack
stood by beaming. The kitten she had brought
down from town in a basket. It lived in Olivia's
room, but she now suggested restoring it to its
own people. Jack, however, reminded her that
it was hers, in such a tender voice; and proceeded
to refer to her kindness at their first meeting, in
so embarrassing a fashion; that the girl, seeking
a change of subject, found one in the long, low
bunk.
“I see,” said she, “that you come here for
your afternoon siesta.”
“I come here for my night's sleep,” he
replied.
“Never !”
“Every night in life. You seem surprised.
I did ask old Claude not to mention it — and —
oh, well, it's no use keeping the thing a secret,
after all. It suits me best—the open country
and the solitude. It's what I’m accustomed to.
The wind in the pines all around, I wake up
and hear it every night, just like I did in the
2


118 MY LORD DUKE
making pretty speeches. And I must tell you
at once that they never amuse me. At least,”
she added more kindly, again facing him, “not
when they come from a person as a rule so can-
did as yourself.”
“But you mistake me; I was perfectly can-
did,” protested poor Jack.
“It won't do,” said the girl. “And it's time
we went.”
Olivia felt that she had made excellent friends
with the Duke ; that the more she saw of him,
the better she would probably like him; and
that she could possibly be of use to him, in little
ways, if he would be sensible, and make no more
than a friend of her. She was not so sure of
him, however, as she could have wished; and
she was anxious to leave well alone. It was
thus the worst of luck that at this last moment
she should perceive the suggestively white
bouquet upon the high deal chimney-piece.
“You’ve been to a wedding,” she cried, “and
I’ve never heard a word about it! Whose was
the wedding 2 Some of the tenantry, of course,
or the bride would hardly have presented you
with her bouquet!”
And she reached it down, and widened her
pretty nostrils over the fading flowers; but
they smelt of death; and their waxen white-


THE OLD ADAM 119
ness had here and there the tarnish of a half-
eaten apple.
“There was no bride,” said Jack, “and no
wedding.”
“Then why this bride's bouquet? No! I
beg your pardon; it isn't a fair question.”
“It is—perfectly. I had it made for a young
lady. The head-gardener made it, but I told
him first what I wanted. There was no word of
a wedding; I only thought a nosegay would be
the right sort of thing to give a young lady, to
show her she was mighty welcome ; and I
thought white was a nice clean sort of colour.
But it turned out I was wrong; she wouldn't
have liked it; it would only have made her un-
comfortable; so, when I found out that, I just
let it rest.”
“I see,” said Olivia, seeing only too clearly.
“Still, I'm not sure you were right: if I had
been the girl —”
“Yes?”
The quick word altered the speech it had also
interrupted.
“I should have thought it exceedingly kind
of you,” said Olivia, after a moment's reflection.
She replaced the flowers on the chimney-
board, and then led the way out among the
pines.


120 MY LORD DUKE
“I’m sorry you were in such a hurry,” he said,
overtaking her when he had locked up the hut.
“I might have made you some billy-tea. The
billy's the can you make it in up the bush. I
had such a work to get one over here ! I keep
some tea in the hut, and billy-tea's not like any
other kind; I call it better; but you must come
again and sample it for yourself.”
“We'll see,” said Olivia smilingly; but with
that she lost her tongue; and together they
crossed the lake in mutually low spirits. It
was as though the delicate spell of simple
friendship had been snapped as soon as spun
between them, and the friends were friends no
In Ore.
On the lawn, however, in a hammock under an
elm, they found a young man smoking. It was
Mr. Edmund Stubbs, who had arrived, with his
friend the Impressionist, on the Saturday after-
noon. He was smoking a pipe; but the ground
beneath him was defiled with the ends of many
cigarettes; and close at hand a deck-chair stood
empty.
“I smell the blood of Mr. Llewellyn,” said
Olivia, coming up with the glooming Duke.
“He smokes far too many cigarettes' "
“He has gone for more,” said the man in the
hammock.


CHAPTER IX
AN ANONYMOUS LETTER
IT is comparatively easy to read a character
from a face. This is always a scientific possi-
bility. To fit the face to a given character is
obviously the reverse. And those who knew
the worst of Lady Caroline Sellwood, before
making her acquaintance, received, on that oc-
casion, something like a shock. They had
nourished visions of a tall and stately figure
with a hook-nose and an exquisitely supercilious
smile; whereas her Ladyship was decidedly
short, and extremely stout, with as plebeian a
snub-nose and as broad a grin as any in her
own back-kitchen. Instead of the traditionally
frigid leader of society, she was a warm-hearted
woman where her own interests were not con-
cerned; where they were, she was just what
expedience made her, and her heart then took
its temperature from her head, like the excel-
lent servant it had always been. A case very
much in point is that of her relations with
Claude Lafont, whom, however, Lady Caroline
122


AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 123
had now her own reasons for fearing no more.
As for the Duke of St. Osmund's, her heart had
been a perfect oven to him from the first.
Nor did she make any pretence about the mat-
ter—it was this that so repelled Olivia. But
the very falsity of the woman was frank to the
verge of a virtue; and the honest dishonesty of
her front hair (which was of the same shade as
Olivia's, only much more elaborately curled)
was as bluntly emblematic as a pirate's flag.
Lady Caroline Sellwood was honestly dishonest
to the last ounce of her two hundredweight of
avoirdupois.
This was the kind of thing she thought noth-
ing of doing. She had been engaged for months
upon an egregious smoking-cap for Claude La-
font. That is to say she had from time to time
put in a few golden stitches, in front of Claude,
which her maid had been obliged to pick out
and put in again behind the scenes. Claude, at
any rate, had always understood that the cap
was for him — until one evening here in the
conservatory, when he saw Lady Caroline coolly
trying it on the Duke.
“It never did fit you, Claude,” she explained
serenely. “It was always too small, and I must
make you another. Only see how it fits the dear
Duke l’”


124 My Lord DUKE
The dear Duke was made the recipient of
many another mark of unblushing favour. He
could do no wrong. His every solecism of act
or word, and they still cropped up at times, was
simply “sweet” in the eyes of Lady Caroline
Sellwood, and his name was seldom on her lips
without that epithet.
Moreover, she would speak her mind to him
on every conceivable topic, and this with a free-
dom often embarrassing for Jack; as, for ex-
ample, on the first Sunday after church.
“I simply don't know how Francis dared
Lady Caroline exclaimed, as she took Jack's arm
on the sunlit terrace. “Twenty-one minutes
by my watch — and such drivel ! It didn't
seem so to you? Ah, you're so sweet! But
twenty-one minutes was an outrage, and I shall
tell the little idiot exactly what I think of
him.”
“I rather like him,” said Jack, who put it
thus mildly out of pure politeness to his com-
panion; “and I rather liked what he said.”
“Oh, he's no worse than the rest of them,”
rejoined Lady Caroline. “Of course I swear
by the sweet Established Church, but the par-
sons personally, with very few exceptions, I
never could endure. Still, it's useful to have
one in the family; he does everything for us.
!”


AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 125
He christens the grandchildren, and he'll bury
the lot of us if he's spared, to say nothing of
marrying poor Olivia when her time comes.
Ah well, let's hope that won’t be yet! She is
my ewe lamb. And all men are not such dear
sweet fellows as you!”
This sort of speech he found unanswerable;
and although treated by her Ladyship with
unflagging consideration, amounting almost to
devotion, Jack was never at his ease in such
interviews.
One of these took place in the hut. Lady
Caroline insisted on seeing it, accompanied by
Olivia. Of course the whole idea charmed her
to ecstasies; it was so original; it showed such
a simple heart; and the hut itself was as
“sweet” as everything else connected with the
Duke. So was the pannikin of tea which Jack
was entreated to brew for her in the “billy”:
indeed, this was too sweet for Lady Caroline,
who emptied most of hers upon the earth behind
her camp-stool—an act which Jack pretended
not to detect, and did not in the least resent.
On the contrary, he put a characteristic con-
struction upon the incident, which he attrib-
uted exclusively to Lady Caroline's delicate
reluctance to hurt his feelings by expressing
her real opinion of the tea; for though per-


126 MY LORD DUKE
sonally oppressed by her persistent kindness,
he was much too unsophisticated, and had per-
haps too good a heart of his own, ever to sus-
pect an underlying motive.
Towards the end of that week, in fact on the
Friday afternoon, they were all taking tea on
the terrace; or rather all but the two talented
young men, who were understood never to
touch it, and who, indeed, were somewhat out
of their element at the Towers, except late at
night, when the ladies had gone to bed. “I
can’t think why you asked them down,” said
Lady Caroline to Claude. “I didn't,” was the
reply; “it was you, Jack.” “Of course it was
me,” cried the astonished Jack, “and why not?
Didn't they use to go to your rooms, old man,
and to your house, Lady Caroline?” “Ah,”
said her Ladyship, with her indulgent smile,
“but that was rather a different thing—you
dear kind fellow !” All this, however, was
not on the Friday afternoon, when Lady Caro-
line was absorbed in very different thoughts.
They were not of the conversation, although
she put in her word here and there; the sub-
ject, that of the Nottingham murder, being one
of peculiar interest. The horrible case in ques-
tion, which had filled the papers all that week,
had ended the previous day in an inevitable


128 MY LORD DUKE
to the terrace. But Lady Caroline noted none
of these things, nor yet the shadows of spire
and turret encroaching on the lawn — nor yet
the sunlight strong as ever on the lake beyond.
She was already pondering on the best way of
bringing a certain matter to a head. This quiet
country life, with so tiny a house-party, and
with one day so like another, was excellent so
far as it went, but the chances were that it
would not go the whole way. It lacked ex-
citement and incentive. It was the kind of
life in which an attachment might too easily
stagnate in mere foolish friendship. It needed
an event; a something to prepare for, to look
forward to; a something to tighten the nerves
and slacken the tongue; and yet nothing that
should give the Duke an opportunity of appear-
ing at a public disadvantage.
So this was the difficulty. It disqualified the
dance, the dinner-party, even the entertaining
of the county from 3.30 to 6.30 in the grounds.
But Lady Caroline overcame it, as she overcame
most difficulties, by the patient application of
her ingenious mind. And her outward scheme
was presently unfolded in the fewest and appar-
ently the most spontaneous words.
“He is not guilty, and he shall not die,” she
suddenly observed, as though the Nottingham


A N ANONYMOUS LETTER 129
murder had all this time monopolised her
thoughts. “But let us speak of something
else; I had, indeed, a very different matter
upon my mind, until the papers came and ban-
ished everything with this ghastly business.
The fact is, dear Duke, that you should really
do something to entertain your tenantry, and
possibly a few neighbours also, before they
begin to talk. They will expect it sooner or
later, and in these things it is always better to
take time by the forelock. Mind, I don’t mean
an elaborate matter at all — except from their
point of view. I would just give them the
run of the place for the afternoon, and feed
the multitude later on. Francis, don't look
shocked I hope you'll be there to ask a bless-
ing. Then, Duke, you could have a band on
the lawn, and fireworks, and indeed anything
you like. It's always good policy to do the
civil to one's tenantry, though no doubt a bore;
but you needn't shake hands with them, you
know, and you could leaven the lower orders
with a few parsons and their wives from the
surrounding rectories. It's only a suggestion,
of course, and that from one who has really no
right to put in her oar at all; still I know you
won't misunderstand it—coming from me.”
He did not; his face had long been alight
R -


130 MY LORD DUKE
and aglow with the red-heat of his enthusiasm;
and now his words leapt forth like flames.
“The very ticket!” he cried, starting to his
feet. “A general muster of all sorts, and
we'll do 'em real well. Fizz and fireworks!
A dance on the lawn' And I'll make 'em a
speech to wind up with !”
“That would be beautiful,” said Lady Caro-
line with an inward shudder. “What a dear
fellow you are, to be sure, to take up my poor
little suggestion like this l’’
“Take it up,” cried Jack, “I should think
I would take it up! It'll be the best sport
out. Lady Caroline, you're one in two or
three I’m truly thankful for the tip. Here's
my hand on it !”
His hand was pressed without delay.
“It really is an excellent suggestion,” said
Claude Lafont, in his deliberate way, after ma-
ture consideration. “It only remains to settle
the date.”
“And the brand of fizz, old man, and the
sort of fireworks 1 I'll leave all that to you.
And the date, too; any day will do me; the
sooner the better.”
“Well,” said Lady Caroline, as though it
had only just struck her, “Olivia's birthday
is the twentieth 92
2


AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 131
“Mamma ’’ cried that young lady, with real
indignation.
“And it's her twenty-first birthday,” pursued
the other, “and she is my ewe lamb. I must con-
fess I should like to honour that occasion—”
“Same here ! By all manner o' means !”
broke in the Duke. “Now, Miss Sellwood, it's
no use your saying one word; this thing's a
fixture for the twentieth as ever is.”
The girl was furious. The inevitable, nay,
the intentional linking of her name with that
of the Duke of St. Osmund's, entailed by the
arrangement thus mooted and made, galled
her pride to the quick. And yet it was but
one more twang of the catapult that was daily
and almost hourly throwing her at his head;
neither was it his fault any more than hers;
so she made shift to thank him, as kindly as
she could at the moment, for the compliment
he was so ready to pay her — at her mother's
suggestion.
“You could hardly get out of it, however,
after what was said,” she added, not perhaps
inexcusably in the circumstances.
“No more can you,” retorted the Duke.
“And here comes the very man we must all
consult,” he added, as the agent appeared, a
taking figure in his wrinkled riding breeches,


132 MY LORD DUKE
and with his spurs trailing on the dead-smooth
flags.
The agent handed Jack a soiled note, and
then sat down to talk to the ladies. This he
did at all times excellently, having assurance
and a certain well-bred familiarity of manner,
which, as the saying is, went down. In this
respect he was a contrast to all the other men
present. He inquired when the Home Secre-
tary would be back and ready for his revenge
on the links. And he heard of the plans for
the twentieth with interest and a somewhat
superfluous approval. Meanwhile the Duke had
read his note more than once, and now he
looked up.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, dis-
playing the crumpled envelope, which had also
a hole through the middle.
“In rather a rum place,” replied the agent.
“It was nailed to a tree just outside the north
gates.”
“Well, see here,” said Jack, who stood facing
the party, with his back to the stone bulwark
of the terrace, and a hard look on his face;
“that's just the sort of place where I should
have expected you to find it, for it's an anony-
mous letter that some fellows might keep to
themselves—but not me! I'm for getting to


AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 133
the bottom of things, whether they're nice
or whether they're nasty. Listen to this: “To
the DUKE of St. Osmund's ’—he prints “Duke'
in big letters, as much as to say I'm not one.
“A word in your GRACE's ear’—he prints that
the same. “They say,’ he says, “that you hail
from Australia, and I say you're not the first
claimant to titles and estates that has sprung
from there. Take a friendly tip and put on as
few frills as possible till you're quite sure you
are not going to be bowled out for a second
Tichborne. A WBLL-wish ER.” Now what does
it all mean? Is it simple cheek, or isn't it? I
recollect all about Tichborne. I recollect see-
ing him in Wagga when I was a lad, and we
took a great interest in his case up the bush;
but why am I like him? Where does the
likeness come in 2 I’ve heard fat men called
second Tichbornes, but I don't turn twelve
stone. Then what can he mean? Does he
mean I'm not a Duke? I know I'm not fit to be
one ; but that's another matter; and if it comes
to that, I never claimed to be one either; it was
Claude here who yarded me up into this pen
Then what's it all about? Can any lady or
gentleman help me 2 I'll pass the letter round,
and I'll be mightily obliged if they can l’”
They could: it was pure insolence, not to be


134 MY LORD DUKE
taken seriously for a single moment. So they
all said with one consent; and Jack was further
advised to steel himself forthwith against anony-
mous letters, of which persons in his station re-
ceived hundreds every year. The agent added
that he believed he knew who had written this
one; at least he had his suspicions.
In a word, the affair was treated by all in the
very common-sense light of a mere idle insult;
any serious sympathy that was evinced being due
entirely to the fact that Jack himself seemed
to take it rather to heart. Lady Caroline Sell-
wood dismissed the matter with the fewest
words of all; nevertheless, Jack detected her
in a curious, penetrating, speculative scrutiny
of himself, which he could not fathom at the
time; and her Ladyship had a word to say to
Claude Lafont after obtaining his arm as far as
the house.
“That sort of thing is never pleasant,” she
observed confidentially, “and I can't help wish-
ing the dear fellow had kept his letter to him-
self. It gives one such disagreeable ideas I
am the last person to be influenced by such
pieces of impudence, as a general rule; still I
could not help thinking what a very awkward
thing it would be if your Mr. Cripps had made
a big mistake after all! Not awkward from


AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 185
every point of view, dear Claude"—and here
she pressed his arm—“but — but of course he
had every substantial proof?”
“Of course,” said Claude. “I looked into it,
as a matter of form, on Cripps's return ; though
his word was really quite sufficient. Well, he
had copies of the certificate of Jack's birth, and
of that of my uncle's marriage, besides proof
positive that Jack was Jack. And that was
good enough for me.”
“And for me too,” said Lady Caroline, drop-
ping his arm. “He is a dear fellow; I hardly
know which is greater, my regard for him or
my sympathy with you!” And her Ladyship
marched upstairs.
Meantime the agent had led Jack aside on
the terrace.
“I know who sent that letter,” said he. “I
had my suspicions all along, and I recognised the
disguised hand in a moment. It was Matthew
Hunt.”
“Well?” said Jack.
“Well, it was meant merely as an annoyance:
a petty revenge for the handsome thrashing you
gave the fellow six weeks ago—I wish I'd seen
it! But that's not the point. The point is that
I think I could bring it home to the brute; and
I want your Grace to let me try.”


136 My LoRD DUKE
“I can’t. What's the good? Leave bad
alone; we should only make it worse.”
“Then mayn't I raise the rent of the Lower
Farm 2''
“No ; not yet, at any rate. I mean to give
the fellow a chance.”
“And an invitation for the twentieth too?”
“Certainly; he's a tenant, or his father is;
we can't possibly leave them out.”
“Very well; your Grace knows best.”
And the agent went his way.


CHAPTER X
“DEAD NUTS ’’
IT was three o'clock in the early morning of
the twentieth of August. A single jet of gas,
lighting a torch in the mailed hand of a life-
size man-at-arms, burnt audibly in the silent
hall; making the worst of each lugubrious
feature, like a match struck in a cavern. And
Claude Lafont was sitting up alone, in the
Poet's Corner, at work upon his birthday offer-
ing to Olivia Sellwood.
At three, however, it was finished in the
rough. The poet then stretched his fingers,
took a clean sheet of paper, and started upon
the fair copy in his prettiest hand. It began —
“What songs have I to sing you?
What tales have I to tell ?”
And there it stuck, as though these questions
were indeed unanswerable; the fact being, there
was another still to come, which, however, in-
volved an execrable couplet as it stood. Claude
137


138 MY LORD DUKE
twisted it about for half-an-hour; realised its
gratuitous badness; tried not to ask this inane
question at all, hunted his rhyming dictionary
up and down, and found he must; and finally,
with a prayer that it might impose upon Olivia,
and another for forgiveness from the Muse,
finished his first stanza with —
“What garlands can I bring you
From Fancy's fairest dell?
Before the world grew old, dear,
The lute was lightlier strung;
Now all the tales are told, dear,
And all the songs are sung.”
It is needless to quote more. The sentiments
were superior to their setting. An affectionate
camaraderie was employed, with success, as a
cloak for those warmer feelings of whose exist-
ence in his own bosom the poor poet was now
practically convinced. And the lines in them-
selves were not all or wholly bad; there was a
certain knack in them, and here and there some
charm. But if infinite pains could have made
them a work of genius, that they would have
been. It was almost five when Claude made his
best signature at the foot of the last verse; yet
there were but four of these, or thirty-two lines
in all.


“ DEAD NUTS” 139
He put them in an envelope which he sealed
deliberately with his signet-ring. The delibera-
tion of all his private doings was enormous;
neither the hour nor an empty stomach could
induce briskness at the expense of pains. Yet
Claude was exceedingly hungry, and the night
had put an edge on his nerves. As he paced the
floor the undue distinction between his steps, so
soft on the rugs, and so loud on the parquetry,
became exaggerated in his nervous ears; and all
the silence and all the darkness of the sleeping
Towers seemed to press upon that single lamp-
lit, sounding room, like fathoms of wide sea
upon a diver's helm. Claude had not thought
of such things while he was still at work; he
had rather overdone matters, and he poured out
a sparing measure of whisky from the decanter
upon the table.
There were other glasses with dregs at the
bottom. The air was tainted with stale smoke,
and within the fender lay the remains of many
cigarettes. This was why Claude was so late.
He had been late in making a start. Stubbs and
Llewellyn had sat up with him till the small
hours. The Poet's Corner was the one spot in
which these young men seemed really at home.
Here, by midnight, but seldom before, they could
manage to create unto themselves t eir own ele-


140 MY LORD DUKE
ment; for their Philistine host went early to his
eccentric lair; but there were always his easy-
chairs to lounge in, his whisky to drink, and
Claude Lafont to listen to their talk.
Not that the poet was so good a listener as he
had been once; the truth being, that he found
himself a little out of touch with his clever
friends — he hardly knew why. It might be the
living under one roof with them; he himself
would never have asked them down. Or it
might be the simultaneous hourly contact with
an opposite type of man—the kindly, unaffected
dunce—the unburnished nugget, reeking yet of
the Australian soil, but with the gold wearing
brighter every day.
Certain it was that the benefit of the cousins'
close companionship had not been all on one side.
If the force of example had toned down some of
Jack's pristine roughness of speech and manner,
it had taken a like effect upon sundry peculiarities
of a converse character in Claude. In a word,
there had been an ideal interchange between the
two, founded on a mutual liking. The ameliora-
tion of the Duke was sufficiently obvious to all;
that of Claude struck Olivia especially, who had
never been blind to his faults; needless to add,
he was himself the last to see how he had changed.
Yet he divined something of it now. As he


“ DEAD NUTS” 141
thought of the verses he had just written, and of
the critic to whom he would have submitted
them in all humility a couple of months ago,
he knew that he was no longer as he had been
then; for he had not the faintest intention of
allowing that critic to see these verses at all.
So Claude calmed his nerves, eating biscuits
the while, and sipping soda-water merely tinct-
ured with whisky; until all at once the lamp
began to flicker and to smell, and the song of
the birds, singing in Olivia's birthday, came at
last to his ears through the plate-glass and rich
curtains of the octagonal window. Then he rose;
and in half a minute the lamp was out, the cur-
tains drawn, a sash thrown up, and the risen sun
shining mercilessly on the dishevelled head and
blue chin and battered shirt-front of Claude
Lafont.
The cool, fresh scene inspired him with de-
light; it was indeed a disgraceful novelty to the
poet. He thought nothing of rhyming “morn”
with “dawn,” and yet of this phenomenon itself
he had little or no experience. He would gain
some now ; he also promised himself the unique
pleasure of rousing the early-rising Jack. So
he got out of the window, and soaked his feet
in the dew, only to meet Jack emerging from
his hut, with towels on his arm, as he approached


142 My LoRD DUKE
it. Nor was the Duke's surprise very flattering;
but his chaff was fair enough. He was himself
about to bathe in the creek at the north end of
the tank. Would Claude join him and then go
back to the hut for an early pannikin of bush
tea? Claude would, and did, feeling (as all felt
at Jack's hut) that he had been flashed through
the thick of the earth, and come out in the wilds
of Australia.
In the hut a log fire had burnt well up by the
time they returned with wet towels and glowing
skins. Over the flames hung the billy-can, with
boiling water throbbing against the side. Jack
lifted it down with a stick, and threw a handful
of tea among the bubbles. “Shall I sweeten it?”
he then asked; and, at Claude's nod, threw in
another handful of brown sugar.
“There, that's real bush tea for you,” contin-
ued the Duke, in a simmer of satisfaction himself
as he stirred the mixture with the stick. “Now
take the pannikin and dip it in. There's no milk,
mind; that wouldn't be the thing at all. Here
are some biscuits, and they aren't the thing
either. I'd have made you a damper, only I
never could strike a camp-oven; it's been trouble
enough to raise the plant I’ve got. What do you
think of the tea?”
“Capital!” cried Claude, who was seated on


“ DEAD NUTS ’’ - 143
the bunk. And indeed the whole thing appealed
to his poetic palate; for he could not forget that
this hut was within half a mile of the Towers
themselves, in which the Duke took evidently
far less pleasure; and the many-sided contrast
amused his literary sense, even while it piqued
his family pride.
“How I wish it was the real thing !” said
Jack, with a sigh. “I'd have a camp-oven, then,
and you should have your mutton chop and
damper served up hot. I used to be an artist at
a damper. Then after breakfast I'd take you
with me round the paddocks, and you'd help me
muster a mob and drive them to the tank; and
you'd hear them bleat and see them start to run
when they smelt the water. My colonial oath,
I can see 'em and hear 'em now ! Then we'd
give our mokes a drink in the middle of 'em,
and we'd take a pull at our own water-bags.
Then we might camp under the nearest hop-bush
for a snack, and I should yard you up at the
homestead, and make you know my old boss
before the day was over. What a day it would
be for you! You wouldn't believe the sky
could get so blue or your face so red. But it's
no use talking—here we are again!” And he
set down his empty pannikin with another sigh.
“You wouldn't really prefer that life to this?”


144 MY LORD DUKE
“No ; perhaps not; but I like to think of it, .
as you can see.”
“Surely you like your new life best by
this time? You wouldn't go back there
now?”
“I like my new friends best; I wouldn't go
back on them. Olivia and you, for instance.”
“It's her birthday,” said Claude; but a silence
had intervened.
“So it is. God bless her I haven't got her
anything, because I seemed to make a mull of
it with those flowers. Have you?”
“Yes, I have a trifle for her; it's rather a
different thing on her birthday, you know. And
—and I’ve written her a few verses; that's what
I’ve been doing all night.”
“Clever dog!” said Jack enviously. “See
what it is to be a man of genius; here's where
it comes in so handy. And has Llewellyn done
her something, too?”
“Yes; a portrait of herself.”
“Well, let him label it to that effect, or she
may put her foot in it like me. He never shows
me his blooming drawings now. But I wish
you'd let me see your poem.”
“It's not all that; it's only verses, and pretty
bad ones too; still, you shall hear them if you
like, and if I can remember them,” said Claude,


“ DEAD NUTS ’’ 145
who would have found much more difficulty in
forgetting them so soon. “I only wish they
were better! There are some lamentable lines
here and there. I tried to iron them out, but
they wouldn't all come.”
“Go on 1" cried Jack, lighting his pipe. “I’ll
tell you whether they're good or bad. You go
ahead l’”
And Claude did so, only too glad of a second
opinion of any kind; for he had little or no
intellectual self-reliance, and was ever ready to
think his productions good or bad with their
latest critic. On this occasion, however, he
would have been better pleased with the general
enthusiasm of the Duke, had not the latter pro-
ceeded to point out particular merits, when it
transpired that the ingenuity of the rhymes was
what impressed him most. Knowing where
they came from, the poet himself was unable to
take much pride in this feature.
“They're splendid!” reiterated Jack. “You
ought to be the laureate, old man, and I’ve a
good mind to tell 'em so in the House of Lords.
You're far and away ahead of Shakespeare at
rhyming; he hardly ever rhymes at all; I know
that; because there used to be a copy of him in
my old hut. I say, I like that about the gar-
lands from Fancy's dell; that's real poetry, that
L


146 MY LORD DUKE
is. But do you mind giving me the last four
lines again?”
Claude gave them —
“While yet the world was young, dear,
Your minstrel might be bold:
Now all the songs are sung, dear,
And all the tales are told.”
“First-chop,” said Jack, whose look, however,
was preoccupied. “But what's that you're driv-
ing at about the minstrel being bolder? What
was it you'd have said if only you'd had the
cheek? Say it to me. Out with it !”
“I don't know, really,” said Claude, laughing.
“Then I do: you're dead nuts on Olivia!”
“What's that ?”
“You like her l’”
“Naturally.”
“As much as I do | *
“That all depends how much you like her,
Jack.” -
There was a moment's pause. The Duke was
sitting on his heels in front of the fire, into
which he was also staring fixedly; so that it
was impossible to tell whether the red light
upon his face was spontaneous or reflected.
And he spoke out now without turning his
head.


“ DEAD NUTS” 147
“Old man,” he said, “I’ve wanted a straight
word with you this long time — about Olivia.
Of course I know I oughtn't to call her Olivia
behind her back, when I daren't to her face;
but that's what she is in my own heart, you see
—and that's where she's pegged out a claim for
good and all. Understand? We can't all talk
like books, old man! Still I want to make my-
self as plain as possible.”
“You do so. I understand perfectly,” said
Claude Lafont.
“That's all right. Well, as I was saying,
she's pegged out a claim that no other woman
is ever going to jump. And what I was going
to say was this: you remember that night in
your rooms in town? I mean when I said I
meant no harm, and all that; because I spoke
too soon. Worse still, I felt mean when I did
speak; it didn't ring true; and long I’ve known
that even then there was only one thing that
would have held me back. That was —if she'd
been your girl! I gave you a chance of saying
if she was, but you only laughed; and sometimes
I've thought your laugh wasn't any truer than
my word. So I've got to have it in plain English
before I go the whole hog. Claude—old man—
she never was — your girl?”
“Never,” said Claude decidedly.


148 My Lord DUKE
“You never asked her — what I think of ask-
ing one of these days?”
“Never.”
“Thank God, old man. I’m dead nuts on her
myself, I tell you frankly; and I mean to tell
her when I can rake together the pluck. I'm
not sure I can keep it to myself much longer.
The one thing I’m sure of is that she'll laugh in
my face —if she isn't too riled! I hear her do-
ing it every night of my life as Ilie where you're
sitting and listen to the pines outside. I hear
her saying every blessed thing but ‘yes!” Yet
it isn't such cheek as all that, is it, Claude? I
want your candid opinion. I’m not such a larri-
kin as I was that day you met me, am I ?”
And he turned to the other with a simple,
strong humility, very touching in him; but
Claude jumped up, and getting behind him so
that their eyes should not meet, laid his hands
affectionately on the Duke's shoulders.
“You are not the same man,” he said with a
laugh; “yet you are the same good fellow ! I
could wish Olivia no better fate — than the one
you think of. So I wish you luck—from my
heart. And now let us go.”
On the lawn they found the Home Secretary
driving a dozen golf-balls into space from an im-
promptu tee. He had come for good now, the


“ DEAD NUTS" 149
session being over at last. And this was his daily
exercise before breakfast, and his valet's daily
grievance, whose duty it was to recover the balls.
Mr. Sellwood accompanied the younger men
into the house, where Claude had still to shave
and dress; but the Duke was the uninterested
witness of an interesting scene, between the
Home Secretary and his wife, before any one
else came down to breakfast. The subject was
that of the Nottingham murder.
“They are making an example of you!” said
Lady Caroline bitterly, looking up from her
husband's daily stack of press-cuttings, which
she always opened.
“Let them,” said Mr. Sellwood, from the
depths of the Sportsman, which he read before
any of his letters.
“They call it a judicial murder—and upon
my word, so do I! Your decision is most
unpopular; they clamour for your resignation
—and I must say that I should do the same.
Here's a cartoon of you playing golf with a hu-
man skull for the ball !”
“Exactly how I mean to spend my day—bar-
ring the skull.”
“They know it, too; it's a public scandal;
even if it wasn't, I should be ashamed of myself,
with that poor man awaiting his end l’”


150 MY LORD DUKE
“He was hanged five minutes ago,” declared
the Home Secretary, consulting his watch.
“And I may as well tell you, my dear, that I
had his full confession in my pocket when I
gave my decision the night before last. It
appears in this morning's papers. And I fancy
that's my hole,” added Mr. Sellwood, nodding
at Jack.
But Jack had no more to say than Lady
Caroline, utterly routed for once. The Duke
did not perhaps appreciate the situation, or per-
haps he was not listening; for his eyes hung very
wistfully on Olivia's plate, which was laden and
surrounded by birthday offerings of many de-
scriptions. There were several packets by post,
and an open cheque from the Home Secretary.
Claude had added his beautifully sealed envelope
before going upstairs, and now Llewellyn came
in with his “likeness of a lady.” The lady was
evidently lost in a fog; the likeness did not
exist; and the whole production was exactly
like a photographic failure which is both out of
focus and “over-exposed.” But it was better
than poor Jack's contribution of nothing at all.


CHAPTER XI
THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH
A Loose chain of fairy lights marked the
brink of the lake; another was drawn tight
from end to end of the balustrade rimming the
terrace; and between the two, incited by cham-
pagne and the Hungarian band, the rank and
file of the tenantry cut happy capers in the
opening eye of the harvest moon.
At one end of the terrace the fire-workers
awaited the word to rake and split the still
serenity of the heavens; at the other, the fairy
footlights picked out the twinkling diamonds
and glaring shirt-fronts of the house-party, the
footmen's gilt buttons and powdered heads;
for the men had just come out of the dining-
room, and tea was being handed round.
“It is going beautifully—beautifully!” whis-
pered Lady Caroline, swooping down upon the
Duke, who had himself made straight for her
daughter's side. “Inside and out, high and
low, all are happy, it is one huge success.
How could it be otherwise? You make such a
151


THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH 155
“Well, if you insist on giving me a present,
it must be something not half so good.”
“That's my affair.”
“And perhaps not a ring.”
“That's another matter, and on one condition
I'm on : you must let me drive you in to-mor-
row to choose for yourself.”
She consented gratefully. Her gratitude was
the more profuse from, it may be, an exaggerated
sense of the dilemma in which she had found
herself a moment before; at all events it was
very kindly and charmingly expressed. So Jack
pocketed the ring and swallowed his tea in ex-
cellent heart; longing already for the morrow,
for the expedition to Devenholme with Olivia
alone at his side.
“That excellent fellow seems very busy with
our Olivia. Is there anything in it?” asked
Mr. Sellwood of his wife.
“I have no idea,” replied Lady Caroline;
“you know I never interfere in such matters.
I'm glad you think him an excellent fellow,
though. He is simply sweet.”
“In fact we might do worse from every point
of view; is that it?” said the Home Secretary
dryly. “I’m inclined to agree with you. I hope
he won't foozle his shot by being in too great a
hurry.”


THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH 157
as he came among them with Olivia on his arm.
There were the momentary glimpses of the
stately Towers, seen from end to end in a flash,
as a bursting rocket spattered the sky with a
million sparks that changed colour as they
floated to the earth. And there was the feel-
ing, never before this moment entirely unmixed,
that after all it was better to be the Duke of
St. Osmund's than Happy Jack of New South
Wales.
“You were right!” he exclaimed, in an at-
tempt to voice what he felt to Olivia; “you were
quite right that day in the hut to say ‘I wonder,’
to what I said about not minding if I woke up
and found myself on Carara after all. You set
me wondering at the time, and now I rather
think that I should mind a good deal. This
place grows upon you. I feel it more and more
every morning when I get the first glimpse of
it, coming through the pines. But I never felt
it as I do to-night—look at that!”
The entire front of the building was lit up by
an enormous Roman candle, playing like a foun-
tain on the terrace. Turret and spire and battle-
ment were stamped sharp and grey against the
darkling sky. The six Corinthian columns of
the portico stood out like sentinels who had
taken a step forward as one man. And in the


158 My Lord DUKE
tympanum overhead the shield of the six eagles
that was carved there showed so plainly that
Olivia and Jack pointed it out to each other at
the same moment.
“You mustn't think I’ve no respect for the
fowls,” said the Duke, when they were both
left blinking in the chaste light of the reproving
moon; “I’m proud enough of them at the bot-
tom of my heart. I may be slow at catching
on to new ideas. I know I didn't at first take
to everything like a duck to water. I couldn't,
after the life I’d led; it was too much for one
man. But I am getting used to it now. As old
Claude says, I’m beginning to appreciate it. I
am so! This has been the proudest day of my
life; I’m proud of everything, of the place, the
people **
“And yourself most of all!” cried a thick
voice at his elbow, while Olivia's fingers tight-
ened on his other arm.
It was Matthew Hunt. He was flushed with
wine, but steady enough on his legs. Only
his tongue was beyond control, and a crowd
was at his heels to hear what he would say
next.
“Yes, I remember you,” he continued sav-
agely. “I shan’t forget that morning in a
hurry—”


THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH 159
“Yet you seem to have forgotten who you
are speaking to,” put in the Duke quietly.
Hunt laughed horribly.
“Forgotten ? I never knew All I know
is as I’m not speaking to his Grace the
Duke **
Olivia was not shaken off. She only felt a
quivering in the arm she held; she only guessed
it was the other arm that shot out too quick for
her sight from his further shoulder; and all she
saw was the dropping of Hunt at their feet, as
if with a bullet through his brain. She con-
quered her impulse to scream, and she found
herself saying instead, “Well done! It served
him right!” And the voice sounded strange in
her own ears.
But her opinion was freely echoed by those
who had followed in Hunt's wake. A dozen
hands raised him roughly, and kept their hold
of him even when he was firm upon his feet,
half stunned still, but wholly sobered. He tried
to shake them off, but they answered that he
must first apologise to his Grace. He refused,
and they threatened him with the pond. He
gave in then, in a way, speaking one thing, but
looking another, which was yet the plainer of
the two to the Duke. It meant that all was
not yet over between him and Hunt. And


160 MY LORD DUKE
Jack was very silent as he led Olivia back to
the terrace.
“You were quite right,” she said as they
went ; “had I been a man I would have done
it for you.”
“You’re a splendid girl,” he replied, to her
confusion; but that was all; nor did he seem
conscious of what he said.
Already it was late, and in another hour the
band had stopped; the fireworks were over;
the people all gone, and gone the memory
of their ringing cheers from the heart of the
Duke, who stood alone with Claude Lafont on
the moonlit terrace. Claude had heard of
Hunt's insolence and summary chastisement;
he regretted the incident extremely; but his
state of mind was nothing to that of the Duke,
who was now a prey to reactionary depression
of the severest order.
“Are there any revolvers in the house?” said
he. “I shall want a loaded one to-night.”
“What in the world for 2° cried Claude
in dismay.
“Not for my own brains; you needn't alarm
yourself. But you see what a bitter enemy I’ve
made; he might get me at his mercy out there
at the hut. There was murder in his eye to-
night, or else truth in his words, and that you


THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH 161
won’t allow. But there was one or the other.
So I want a shooter before I go over.”
“If only you wouldn't go over at all! What's
the use, when there are dozens of good rooms
lying idle in the house? It does seem a mad-
ness l’”
“Well, I am half thinking of giving it up;
but not to-night, or that brute may go killing
my cats. He's capable of anything. Give me
a revolver like a good chap.”
Claude fetched one from the gun-room. He
it was who still knew the whereabouts of all
things, who kept the keys, and who arranged
most matters for the Duke. He was Jack's
major-domo as well as his guide, philosopher,
and friend.
To-night they walked together as far as the
shores of the lake. Claude then returned, but
for some reason the pair shook hands first. No
word was said, save between eye and eye in the
pale light of the new harvest moon. But Claude
had never yet seen his cousin gaze so kindly on
the home of their common ancestors as he did
to-night before they separated. And that look
was a consolation to the poet as he returned
alone to the house.
“This is the last link with that miserable
bush life,” said Claude to himself; “and it's
M


162 MY LORD DUKE
very nearly worn through. He's beginning to
see that there wasn't so much after all in the
inheritance of Esau. After to-night we shall
have no more of this nonsense of camping out
in a make-believe bush hut; he will sleep under
his own roof, like a sane man, and I’ll get him
to burn the bush hut down. After that — after
that—well, I suppose the wedding-bells and the
altar rails are only a question of time !”
And Claude went within, to talk of art and
of books until bookman and artist went to bed;
but he himself returned to the terrace instead
of following their example. A dark depression
was brooding over his spirit, his mind was full
of vague forebodings. He had also a hundred
regrets, and yet the last and the least of these
was for the moment the most poignant too. He
was sorry he had yielded to Jack in the matter
of that revolver. And even as the thought came
into his head — by some strange prescience —
surely never by coincidence — he heard a shot
far away in the direction of the lake. He held
his breath, and heard a single throb of his own
heart; then another shot; and then another and
another until he had counted five.
Now it was a five-chambered revolver that
Claude had handed fully loaded to his cousin.


CHAPTER XII
THE WRONG MAN
THE Duke had proceeded to his hut with the
slow and slouching gait of a man bemused; yet
the strings of his body were as those of a lute, and
there was an inordinate keen edge to his every
sense. He heard the deer cropping the grass
far behind him; and he counted the very rever-
berations of the stable clock striking a half-
hour in the still air. It was the half-hour after
midnight. The moon still slanted among the
pines, and Jack followed his own shadow, with
his beard splayed against his shirt-front, until
within a few yards of his hut. Then he looked
quickly up and about. But the hut was ob-
viously intact; there was the moon twinkling
in the padlock of which the key was in his
pocket; and Jack returned to his examination
of the ground.
He was a very old bushman; he had a black-
fellow's eye for a footprint, and he had struck a
trail here which he knew to be recent and not
163


164 MY LORD DUKE
his own. He followed it to the padlocked door,
and round the hut and back to the door. He
found the two heel-marks where the man had
sat down to think some matter over. Then he
took out his key and went within, but left
the door wide open; and while his back was
still turned to it, for he could not find his
matches, there was a slight noise there, and the
moon's influx was stemmed by a man's body.
“Good morning, Hunt,” said Jack, without
turning round.
The tone, no less than the words, took the
intruder all aback. He had planned a pretty
surprise, only to receive a prettier for his pains.
“How did you know it was me?” he cried.
“By your voice,” was the reply; and the
matches were found at last.
“But before that ?”
“I expected you. Why didn't you go on sit-
ting there with your back to the door?”
“You saw me !” cried Hunt, coming in.
“I saw your tracks. Hullo l Be good enough
to step outside again.”
“I’ve come to talk to you
“Quite so; but we'll talk outside.”
And Hunt had to go with what grace he
might. Jack followed with a couple of camp-
stools, pulled the door to, sat down on one of
99


THE WRONG MAN 165
the stools, and motioned Hunt to the other.
The great smooth face shook slowly in reply;
and the moonlight showed a bulbous bruise
between the eyes, which made its author frown
and feel at fault.
“Yes, you may look 1" said Hunt through
the gap in his set teeth which was a piece of
the same handiwork. “You hit hard enough,
but I can hit harder where it hurts more. A
fine Duke you are Oh, yes; double your fists
again — do. You won't hit me this time.
There's no one looking on 1"
“Don’t be too sure, my boy,'
“Don’t you make any mistake l’”
Hunt stuck a foot upon his camp-stool and
leant forward over his knee.
“Recollect why you struck me to-night?”
“Perfectly.”
“Well, I deserved it—for being such a fool
as to say what I had to say at a time like that.
It was the drink said it, not me; I apologise
again for saying it there, I apologise to you and
me too. I was keeping it to say here.”
“Out with it,” said Jack, who to his own as-
tonishment was preserving a perfect calm; as
he spoke he began filling a pipe that he had
brought out with the matches.
“One thing at a time,” said Hunt, producing
»
replied Jack.


166 MY LORD DUKE
a greasy bank-book. “I’ll out with this first,
You may have heard that the old Duke had a
kind of weakness for my folks?”
“I have heard something of the sort.”
“Then I'll trouble you to run your eye over
this here pass-book. It belongs to my old dad.
It'll show you his account with the London and
Provincial Bank at Devenholme. It's a small
account. This here book goes back over ten
years, and there's some blank leaves yet. But
look at it for yourself; keep your eye on the
left-hand page from first to last; and you'll see
what you'll see.”
Jack did so ; and what he saw on every left-
hand page was this: “per Maitland, £50.”
There were other entries, “by cheque” and “by
cash,” but they were few and small. Clearly
Maitland was the backbone of the account;
and a closer inspection revealed the further
fact that his name appeared punctually every
quarter, and always in connection with the sum
of fifty pounds received.
“Ever heard of Maitland, Hollis, Cripps and
Co.?” inquired Hunt.
Jack started; so this was the Maitland.
“They are my solicitors,” he said.
“They were the old Duke's too,” replied
Hunt. “Now have a look at the other side of


168 MY LORD DUKE
suppose sent it up 2 Why, you ! I'll tell you
how. I dessay you can guess; still I'll tell you,
then there'll be no mistakes. You've heard
things of your father? You know the sort he
was 7 You won't knock me down again for
mentioning it, will you? I thought not! Well,
when the Red Marquis, as they used to call him,
was a young man about the house here, my old
dad was in the stables; and my old dad's young
sister was the Duchess's own maid—a slapping
fine girl, they tell me, but she was dead before I
can remember. Well, and something happened;
something often does. But this was something
choice. Guess what l”
“He married her.”
“He did. He married her at the parish church
of Chelsea, in the name of Augustus William
Greville Maske, his real name all but the title;
still, he married the girl.”
“Quite right too!”
“Oh, quite right, was it? Stop a bit. You
were born in 1855. You told me so yourself;
you may remember the time, and you stake your
life I don't forget it. It was the sweetest music
I ever heard, was that there date | Shall I tell
you why? Why, because them two — the Red
Marquis and his mother's maid — were married
on October 22d, 1853.”


170 MY LORD DUKE
was Claudel And yet—and yet—that saving
fact made facts of all the rest.
“I’ve no doubt your yarn is quite true,” said
Jack, still in a tone that amazed himself. “But
of course you have some proofs on paper?”
“Plenty.”
“Then why couldn't you come out with all
this before ?” *
Hunt gave so broad a grin that a volume of
smoke escaped haphazard from his gaping mouth.
“You’d punished me,” he said, admiring the
red end of his cigar; “I’d got you to punish in
your turn, and with interest. So I gave you
time to get to like the old country in general,
and this here spot in particular; to say nothing
of coming the Duke; I meant that to grow on
you too. I hope as I gave you time enough?
This here hut don't look altogether like it, you
know !”
Jack's right hand was caressing the loaded
revolver in the breast-pocket of his dress-coat;
it was the cold, solid power of the little living
weapon that kept the man himself cool and
strong in his extremity.
“Quite fair,” he remarked. “Any other rea-
son ?”
“One other.”
“What was that?”


THE WRONG MAN 171
“Well, you see, it's like this " — and Hunt
dropped his insolence for a confidential tone far
harder to brook. “It’s like this,” he repeated,
plumping down on the camp-stool in front of
Jack: “there's nobody knows of that there
marriage but us Hunts. We’ve kep' it a dead
secret for nearly forty years, and we don’t want
to let it out now. But, as I say, the secret's
gone up in value. Surely it's worth more than
two hundred a year to you? You don’t want
to be knocked sideways by that there Claude
Lafont, do you? Yet he's the next man. You'd
never let yourself be chucked out by a chap
like that?”
“That's my business. What's your price 7”
“Two thousand.”
“A year?”
“Two thousand a year. Come, it's worth that
to you if it's worth a penny-piece. Think of
your income !”
“Think of yours. Two hundred on condition
you kept a single secret! That was the con-
dition, wasn’t it?”
“Well?”
“You’ve let the secret out, you cur!” cried
Jack, jumping to his feet. “And you’ve lost
your income by it for good and all. Two thou-
sand! You'll never see another two hundred.


172 MY LORD DUKE
What, did you take me for a dirty skunk like
yourself? Do you think I got in this position
through my own fault or of my own accord?
Do you think I'm so sweet on it as to sit tight at
the mercy of a thing like you? Not me! What
you’ve told me to-night the real Duke and his
lawyers shall hear to-morrow; and think your-
self lucky if you aren't run in for your shot at
a damnable conspiracy Did you really suppose
I cared as much as all that? Do you think—
ohl for God's sake, clear out, man, before I do
you any more damage 1"
“Oh, you're good at that,” said Hunt through
his broken tooth. He had risen, and now he
retreated a few paces. “You’re not bad with
your fists, you fool, but I’ve come prepared for
you this time !” and he drew a knife; but the
revolver covered him next instant.
“And I for you,” retorted Jack. “I give you
five seconds to clear out in. One —two —”
“My God, are there such fools—”
“Three — four **
The man was gone. At a safer range he
stopped again to threaten and gloat, to curse
and to coax alternately. But Jack took no
more notice; he turned into the hut, flung the
pistol on the table, and stood motionless until
the railing died away. Yet he had heeded


THE WRONG MAN 173
never a word of it, but was rather reminded that
it had been by its very cessation, as one notes
the stopping of a clock. It made him look out
once more, however; and, looking, he saw the
last of Matthew Hunt in the moonlit spaces
among the pines. His retreating steps died
slowly away. The snapping of a twig was just
audible a little after. And then in the mellow
distance the stable clock chimed and struck one;
and again Jack found himself keeping an im-
aginary count of the reverberations until all was
still.
He stood at the door a moment longer. The
feathered barbs of the pine-trees were drawn in
ink upon a starry slate. The night was as mild
and clear and silent as many a one in the
Riverina itself; and Jack tried to think himself
there; to regard this English summer as the
bushman's dream that he had so often imagined
it here in his model bush hut. But his imagi-
nation was very stubborn to-night. The stately
home which was not his rose in his mind's eye
between him and the stars; once more he saw it
illumined in a flash from spire to terrace; once
more the portico columns marched forward as
one man, while the six eagles flew out in the
tympanum above; and though a purring arose
from his feet, and something soft and warm


174 MY LORD DUKE
rubbed kindly against his shins, he could no
longer forget where he was and who he was
not. He was not the Duke. He was the
wrong man after all. And the hut that he
had built and inhabited, as a protest against
all this grandeur, was a monument of irony
such as the hand of man had never reared in
all the world before.
The wrong man He flung himself upon the
elaborately rude bed to grapple with those three
words until he might grasp what they meant to
himself. And as he lay, his little cat leapt
softly up and purred upon his heart, as if it
knew the aching need there of a sympathy be-
yond the reach of words.
Only one aspect of his case came home to him
now, but that was its worst aspect. The life he
was to lose mattered little after all. He might
miss it more than he had once thought; it was
probable he would but truly appreciate it when
it was a life of the past, as is the way of a man.
Yet even that could be borne. The losing of
the girl was different and a million times worse.
But lose her he must: for what was he now 2
Instead of a Duke a nobody; not even a de-
cently born peasant; a nameless husk of human-
ity, a derelict, a nonentity, the natural son of a
notorious rake. Must he go back then to the


176 MY LORD DUKE
been a poor trick after all. Still I had to empty
it first and see that afterwards.”
“But why? What on earth has happened?”
“I’m not the man after all.”
“What man?”
“The Duke of St. Osmund's.”
And Claude was made to hear everything be-
fore he was allowed the free expression of his
astonishment and incredulity. Then he laughed.
His incredulity remained.
“My dear fellow,” he cried, “there's not a
word of truth in the whole story. It's one
colossal fraud. Hunt's a blackguard. I wouldn't
believe his oath in a court of justice.”
“What about the bank-book?”
“A fraud within a fraud!”
“Not it. I’ll answer for that. Oh, no; we
could have inquired at the bank. Hunt's a
blackguard, but no fool. And you know what
my father was ; from all accounts he wasn't
the man to think twice about a little job like
bigamy.”
“I wouldn't say that; few men of our sort
would be so reckless in such a matter,” declared
the poet. “Now, from all I know of him, I
should have said it was most inconsistent with
his character to marry the girl at all. Every-
thing but that! And surely it's quite possible
/


THE WRONG MAN 177
to explain even that two hundred a year with-
out swallowing such a camel as downright
bigamy. My grandfather was a sort of puri-
tanical monomaniac; even in the days of his
mental vigour I can remember him as a sterner
moralist than any of one's school-masters or col-
lege dons. Then, too, he was morbidly sensi-
tive about the family failings and traditions,
and painfully anxious to improve the tone of
our house. Bear that in mind and conceive as
gross a scandal as you like — but not bigamy.
Do you mean to tell me that a man like my
grandfather would have thought two hundred
a year for all time too much to pay for hushing
such a thing up for all time? Not he – not he l’”
There fell a heavy hand upon Claude's back.
“Claude, old boy, I always said you were a
genius. Do you know, I never thought of that?”
“It's obvious; besides, there's the Eliza Hunt
on the gravestone, I’ve seen it myself. But
look here — I'll tell you what I'll do.”
“What, old man?”
“I’ll run up to town to-morrow and see Mait-
land, Hollis, Cripps about the whole matter.
They've paid the money; they are the men
to know all about it. Stop a moment Hunt
was clever enough to have an exact date for the
marriage. What was it again?”
n


178 My Lord DUKE
“October 22d, 1853.”
“I think he said Chelsea parish church?”
“He did.”
Claude scribbled a note of each point on his
shirt-cuff.
“That's all I want,” said he. “I’ll run up
by the first train, and back by the last. Mean-
while, take my word for it, you're as safe as the
Queen upon her throne.”
“And you?” said Jack.
“Oh, never mind me; I’m very well as I am.”
Claude was fully conscious of his semi-heroic
attitude; indeed he enjoyed it, as he had en-
joyed many a less inevitable pose in his day.
But that he could not help ; and Jack was per-
haps the last person in the world to probe be-
neath the surface of a kind action. His great
hand found Claude's, and his deep voice quiv-
ered with emotion.
“I don't know how it is,” he faltered, “but
this thing has got at me more than I meant it
to. Hark at that! Three o'clock; it'll be light
before we know where we are ; you won't leave
a fellow till it is, will you? I’m in a funk I
I've got to believe the worst till I know other-
wise—that's all about it. The day I shan't
mind tackling by myself, but for God's sake
don't go and leave me to-night. You've got to


THE WRONG MAN 179
go in the morning; stop the rest of the night
out here with me. You shall have the bunk,
and I'll doss down on the floor. I'll light the
fire and brew a billy of tea this minute if only
you'll stay with me now. Didn't you once say
you'd have hold of my sleeve 2 And so you
have had, old man, so you have had : only now's
your time — more than ever.”
Claude was deeply moved by the spectacle of
a stronger man than himself so stricken in every
nerve. He looked very compassionately upon
the eager open face. There were a few grey
hairs about either temple, but in the faint star-
light they looked perfectly white; and there
were crow's-feet under the eyes that seemed to
have escaped his attention till now. He con-
sented to remain on one condition: he must go
back and put out the lights, and close the win-
dows in the Poet's Corner. So Jack went with
him; and those lights were the only sign of life
in all the vast expanse of ancient masonry,
that still belonged to one of them, though they
knew not now to which. It was this thought,
perhaps, that kept both men silent on the ter-
race when the lights had been put out and the
windows shut. Then Jack ran his arm affection-
ately through that of Claude, and together they
turned their backs upon those debatable stones.


CHAPTER XIII
THE INTERREGNUM
LADY CAROLINE SELLWooD was delighted to
find Jack in the hall on making her descent
next morning. He appeared lost, however, in
a gloomy admiration of the ghostly guard in
armour. The attitude and the expression were
alike so foreign to him that Lady Caroline
halted on the stairs. But only for a moment;
the next, Jack was overwhelmed by the soft
tempest of her goodwill, and making prodigious
efforts to return her smiles.
Suddenly she became severe.
“You’re knocked up ! You look as if you
hadn't had a wink of sleep. Oh, I knew how it
would be after all that racket; you dear, naughty
Duke, you should have spared yourself more l’’
I was a fool,” admitted Jack. “But — but
I say, Lady Caroline, I do wish you wouldn't
Duke me !”
“How sweet of you,” murmured Lady Caro-
line.
180


THE INTERREGNUM 181
“You know you didn't last night!” he
hastily reminded her.
“But that was an occasion.”
“So is this l’exclaimed Jack, and his tone
struck the other more than she showed.
“Where is Claude?” inquired Lady Caroline
suddenly.
“On his way to Devenholme.”
“Devenholme !”
“And London, for the day. He had to catch
the 9.40.”
“So he has gone up to town' Odd that one
never heard anything about it — I mean to say
he could have made himself so useful to one.
May I ask when he decided to go?”
Jack hesitated. He had been charged to keep
a discreet tongue during Claude's absence; he
had been supplied with a number of reasons and
excuses ready-made; but perfect frankness was
an instinctive need of this primitive soul, whose
present thoughts stood out in easy print upon
his face, even as he resolved to resist his in-
stincts for once.
“He decided — this morning,” said Jack at
last; and he took from his pocket a lengthy
newspaper cutting attached to a pale green slip:
“This is an article on him and his books, that
has just appeared in the Parthenon. What


182 MY LORD DUKE
wouldn't I give to lay a hold of the brute who
wrote it! I call it the sort of thing to answer
with a hiding. It's one of a series headed “Our
Minor Poets,’ which Claude says has been bad
enough all through; but this article on him is
the worst and most brutal of the lot. And—
and—and old Claude took it to heart, of course;
and — and he's run up to town for the day.”
“Because of a severe criticism I should
have thought he was used to them by now.
Poor dear Claude, he can string a pretty rhyme,
but he never was a poet. And you, Jack —
since you insist – you never were an actor—
until to-day !”
Jack hung his head.
“You don't do it well enough, you dear fel-
low,” continued Lady Caroline caressingly. “As
if you could impose upon me ! You must first
come to me for lessons. Candidly now: what
has taken him up to town in such a hurry?
The same thing that —kept you awake all
night?”
“Candidly, then,” said Jack, raising his hag-
gard face doggedly, “it was ' And if you'll
come out upon the terrace for five minutes I'll
tell you exactly what's wrong. You have a right
to know; and I can trust you not to let it go
any further for the moment. Even if I couldn't,


THE INTERREGNUM 183
I'd have to tell you straight! I hate keeping
things up my sleeve; I can't do it; so let me
make a clean breast of the whole shoot, Lady
Caroline, and be done with it till Claude comes
back.”
Lady Caroline took a discouraging view of
the situation. The Red Marquis had been capa-
ble of anything; related though they had been,
she could not help telling Jack that her parents
had forbidden her to dance with his father as a
young girl. This might be painful hearing, but
in such a crisis it was necessary to face the
possibilities; and Lady Caroline, drawing a little
away from her companion in order to see how
he was facing them, forgot to take his arm any
more as they sauntered in the sun. She under-
took, however, to keep the matter to herself
until Claude's return, at the mention of whose
name she begged to look at the cutting from
the Parthenon.
“A most repulsive article,” her mother in-
formed Olivia after breakfast, but not until she
had repeated to the girl the entire substance of
the late conversation on the terrace. “I never
read anything more venomously ill-bred in my
life; and so untrue ! To say he is no poet—
our Claude ' But we who know him, thank
goodness we know better. It is the true poetry,


184 MY LORD DUKE
not only in but between every line, that dis-
tinguishes dear Claude from the mere stringers
of pretty rhymes of whom the papers sicken one
in these latter days. But where are you going,
my love?”
“To get ready to go with — Jack.”
“To go where, pray?”
“Why, to Devenholme, as we arranged last
night,” replied Olivia, with spirit. “He said he
would drive me over; and you said “how sweet
of him,’ and beamed upon us both !”
Lady Caroline winced. “You impertinent
chit!” she cried viciously; “you know as well
as I do that what I have told you alters every-
thing. Once and for all, Olivia, I forbid you to
drive into Devenholme with — with—with —
that common man l’”
“Very well; the drive's off,” said the girl
with swift decision; and she left her mother
without another word.
She put on her habit and went straight to
Jack.
“Do you mind if we ride into Devenholme
instead of driving?”
“Mind! I should like it even better.”
“Then suppose we go to the stable-yard and
see about our horses ourselves; and while we
are there, we may as well stay and start by the


THE INTERREGNUM 187
adventures. You've never told us any, yet you
must have had heaps. So far I’ve only heard
about the hut, the sheep, the homestead, and
your old boss.”
“A white man!” cried Jack. “I wish you
knew him.”
“So do I; but I can quite picture him, and
just now I would much rather hear about some
of your own adventures. So begin.”
Jack laughed.
“Really, Miss Sellwood, I never had one in
my life!”
“Then really, my Lord Duke, I can't believe
a word ->
Jack was laughing no more.
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “It would be
so much kinder to call me Jack!”
She had forgotten. Her heart smote her now,
and the difficulty was to conceal her unsuspected
sympathy. So she insisted on his calling her
Olivia, to conclude the bargain. And the double
innovation made them both so self-conscious, that
she forgot her thirst for his adventures, while
he brooded heavily upon his bitter-sweet advance-
ment won too late.
So they came into Devenholme as the sun
was shining fore and aft along the quaint old
English streets. And in the town, where he


188 MY LORD DUKE
was well enough known by this time, poor Jack
was received with a cruel consideration that
would have hurt him even more than it did
had he dreamt how it affected his companion.
The tender-hearted girl was inexpressibly grieved,
and never more than when the jeweller mentioned
a hundred guineas as the price of the ring to be
changed; indeed, the situation in the jeweller's
shop was perilously charged with hidden emo-
tions. In this terribly equivocal position, Jack
could not press upon Olivia things for which he
might never be able to pay; neither could Olivia
now refuse any present at all, nor yet lead him
as low as she would have liked in the price, for
fear of revealing her illicit knowledge. So at
last they hit upon a curb-bracelet that fastened
with a tiny padlock. It cost but forty-five
shillings. And when he had locked it upon her
right wrist, he pocketed the key without a re-
mark, then paid ready money and left the shop
in a throbbing agony of shame. The poor jewel-
ler stood bowing them out with the hundred-
guinea ring still in his hand.


CHAPTER XIV
JACK AND HIS MASTER
IT was necessary to bait the horses; it was
equally essential for the pair themselves to have
something to eat. So they rode under the olden
arch of the oak-lined Falcon, and it was “your
Grace” at every step, with ironic iteration very
hard for either of them to bear without a word
to the other. They dismounted therefore with
the less delay; and Olivia turned her back upon
the coffee-room window, and on an elderly, bald,
well-dressed man, whose cool fixed stare made
the girl extremely angry, when Jack at her side
gave a shout of delight.
“So help me never ! it's the boss himself!”
Olivia turned, and there was the objectionable
old fellow in the window smiling and waving
to her enchanted companion. And this was the
man of whom she had heard so often She did
not stop to consider how he came to be here; the
back-blockers were already at explanations, but
Olivia was not listening. She was thinking of
189


JACK AND HIS MASTER 191
on those of Jack; and the second was a mouth
which made the girl regret the austere cut
of his moustache whenever she looked at Mr.
Dalrymple.
“So you left before shearing, sir!” cried Jack,
who was grossly eager for all station news. “I
wonder you did that. They must be in the thick
of it now !”
“They were to begin on the fifth of this month.
The shearing, Miss Sellwood, is the one divine,
far-off event towards which the whole sheep-
station moves,” added Mr. Dalrymple, with a
glibness worthy of Claude Lafont.
“And don't you forget the lamb-marking,”
chimed in Jack. “I hope it was a good lamb-
ing this year, sir?”
“Seventy-nine per cent,” replied Dalrymple.
“I’m afraid that's Greek to you, Miss Sellwood
—and perhaps better so.”
“You see, I’m as keen as ever on the old
blocks!” cried Jack. It was a superfluous
boast.
“So I do see; and I must say, Jack, you sur-
prise me. Do you notice how he “sirs’ me,
Miss Sellwood? I was on my way to pay
homage to the Duke of St. Osmund's, not to
receive it from Happy Jack of Carara!”
“Do you often come over to England, Mr.


JACK AND HIS MASTER 193
be a proud day for me! I little expected to
live to entertain my own boss l’”
Indeed, his pride was genuine enough, and
truly characteristic of the man; but at the back
of it there was a great uneasiness which did not
escape the clear, light eye of Dalrymple. Not
that the squatter betrayed his prescience by
word or sign; on the contrary, he drank Jack's
health in the champagne provided by him, and
included Olivia's name in a very graceful speech.
But Jack drank nothing at all; and having re-
duced his roll to a heap of crumbs, he was now
employed in converting the crumbs into a pile
of pellets.
Olivia pitied his condition; that tremulous
brown hand, with the great bush freckles still
showing at the gnarled finger-roots, touched her
inexpressibly as it lay fidgeting on the white
table-cloth. She strained every nerve to keep
the squatter engaged and unobservant; and she
found herself fluctuating, in a rather irritating
manner, between her first instinctive antipathy
and her later liking for the man. He was ex-
tremely nice to her; he had an obvious kind-
ness for poor Jack; and she apprehended a
personal magnetism, a unique individuality,’”
quite powerful enough to account for Jack's
devotion to him. She felt the influence herself.
o
f


194 My Lord DUKE
Yet there was something—she could not say
what.
The way in which her last vague prejudice
was removed, however, made a deep impres-
sion upon Olivia, besides giving her a startling
glimpse of her own feelings. And it all came
of a casual remark of Dalrymple's, in elucida-
tion of his prompt expedition to the district, to
the effect that the Duke of St. Osmund's had
once saved his life.
“Your life l’’ cried Olivia, while Jack ceased
meddling with his bread.
“To be sure. Is it possible he has never told
you the story?”
“Not a word of it! And only this morning,
as we rode in, I asked him if he had never had
any adventures' "
Her face was a flushed reproach.
“I’d forgotten that one,” said Jack sheepishly.
“I really had. It's so long ago; and it wasn't
much when you come —”
“Not much l’’ interjected Dalrymple. “I
should be very sorry to find myself in such a
tight place again! It's some thirteen years ago,
Miss Sellwood. I was thinking of taking up some
cattle country in the unfenced part of Queens-
land. I had gone up to have a look at the
place, and the blacks attacked us while I was


JACK AND HIS MASTER 195
there. We were three strong in an iron store :
the owner, a stray shearer, and myself. The
shearer had his horse hung up outside; he could
have got away quite easily in the beginning;
but our horses were all turned out, and he
wouldn't leave us. So we dragged his horse
inside, and we set to work to defend the store.”
“I know that shearer l’’ cried Olivia proudly.
“Yet he hangs his head! Oh, go on, Mr.
Dalrymple, go on l’”
“From daybreak to sundown,” continued the
squatter, “we defended ourselves with a Win-
chester, a double-barrelled shot-gun, and an old
muzzle-loading rifle. The blacks came on by
the score, but "... get in, and they
couldn’t set fire to corrugated iron. It was
riddled like a sieve, and each of us three had a
hole in him too; but there was a wall of dead
blacks up against the iron outside, and they
were as good as sandbags. We should have
beaten the fellows off before midnight if our
powder had held out. It didn't; so I assure
you we shook hands, and were going to blow
up the place with a twenty-gallon tin of petro-
leum, that was luckily inside, when our friend
the shearer came out with an idea. His horse
had a ball in its body and was screaming like a
woman, so that it was no use. I recollect we


196 MY LORD DUKE
put it out of its pain with our last charge. But
there was long dry grass all round up to within
some fifteen yards of the store; and after dark
the shearer ran out three or four times with a
bucket of petroleum, and once with a box of
matches. The last time but one the blacks saw
him. They had surrounded the place at a pretty
respectful radius, and they were having what we
call a spell; but they saw him the last time but
one. And when he went out again and struck
his matches they had something to aim at.
Well, his first match went out, and there was a
sheaf of spears sticking in the sand and three
new holes through the house. We waited; not
another thing could we see. We didn't know
whether he was dead or alive, and we heard the
blacks starting to rush us. But we also heard
the scratch of a second match; in another in-
stant the thing flared up like a circular lamp —
and us in the middle of the burner! The coun-
try was burnt black for miles all round, and we
ourselves had a hot time of it, Miss Sellwood; but
here are two of us, at all events, to tell the tale.”
Olivia bowed to him; she could not speak.
Then for a little she turned her wet eyes, wet
with enthusiasm, upon the awkward hero of the
tale. And without more words the party broke
up.


198 MY LORD DUKE
no one else; he was so grateful to Olivia for
liking his friend, and he had so many stories
of Dalrymple to set as well as he could against
that one of himself. So the ride drew to an
end in the golden afternoon, with never a tender
word between the pair, though his heart was as
full as hers; but she could not speak; and the
great seal lay yet upon his lips.


CHAPTER XV
END OF THE INTERREGNUM
NOBODY was about when they dismounted, so
Jack himself led the horses back to the stables,
while Olivia gathered up her habit and scaled
the steps. The stable clock struck five as the
former was returning by way of the shrubbery;
another seven hours, and Claude would come
home with the news. For such an issue, it was
still an eternity to wait. But Jack felt that the
suspense would be easily endurable so long as
he could have sight and speech of Olivia Sell-
wood; without her, even for these few minutes,
it was hardly to be borne.
Yet this stage of his ordeal was made up of
such minutes. He returned to desolate rooms.
Olivia had disappeared; nor could he pitch
upon a soul to tell him where she was. Door
after door was thrown open in vain; each pre-
sented an empty void to his exacting eyes. He
ran outside and stood listening on the terrace.
And there, through an open upper window he
199


200 MY LORD DUKE
heard a raised voice railing, which he could
not but recognise as that of Lady Caroline.
Her words were indistinguishable. But as
Jack looked aloft for the window, one was pas-
sionately shut, and he neither heard nor saw
any more.
The first persons he ultimately encountered
were Mr. Sellwood and the agent. They had
golf-clubs in their hands and wholesome sweat
upon their brows. The agent treated Jack as
usual; the Home Secretary did not. He stated
that he had at last won a round; but his manner
was singularly free from exultation; indeed, it
was quite awkward, as though perfect cordial-
ity had suddenly become a difficult matter, and
he was ashamed to find it so. Certainly there
had been no difficulty of the kind before. And
Jack noted the change, but was too honourable
himself to suspect the cause.
He next fell in with the Frekes. This ex-
cellent couple loved Jack for his goodness to
their children, who were not universally popular.
They now carried him off to tea in the nursery,
where he stayed until it was time to dress for
dinner. Jack liked the children; it was not
his fault that they were so seldom in evidence.
They were obviously spoilt; but Jack thought
they were taken too seriously by all but their


206 MY LORD DUKE
“Your Grace 2 ”
“For God's sake don't call me that again!
I — I’m not used to it, Stebbings — any more
than you're used to me,” added Jack inconse-
quently; and he fled into the grounds until the
old man should be gone.
The night was very dark and heavy; clouds
obscured the moon, shedding a fine rain softly
upon drive and terrace. Jack raised his face,
and a grateful sprinkling cooled its fever. He
longed for a far heavier fall, with the ancient
longing of those prehistoric days when a grey
sky and an honest wetting were the rarest joys
in life. Could he indeed return to that rough
routine after all these weeks of aristocratic ease?
The bushman might exchange his wideawake
for a coronet, but could the peer go back to
the bush 2 Time must show. The only ques-
tion was whether Hunt had lied or told the
truth; and the answer could not be much longer
delayed. Already it was half-past eleven; there
was the clang creeping lazily through the night,
round quarter of a mile of intervening wall, and
half a hundred angles.
He would have gone down the drive to meet
the dogcart; but the night was too dark ; and
beside him blazed the great conservatory like a
palace of fire. He entered it again, and now he


END OF THE INTERREGNUM 207
had it to himself; the statues among the tree-
ferns were his only companions. But in his
absence old Stebbings had placed a little table
with brandy and soda-water set out upon it; even
the butler had seen and pitied his condition.
The third quarter struck. The sound just
carried to the conservatory, for now the rain
was heavier, and the rattle overheard warred
successfully against all other noises. The dog-
cart might drive by without Jack's hearing it.
The suspense was horrible, but a surprise would
be more horrible still. He was becoming un-
strung; why should he not tune himself up
with the brandy? His voluntary teetotalism
was too absurd; he had made no promise, taken
no pledge, but only a private pride in his self-dis-
cipline as it had gone on from day to day. Not
a drop had he touched since that afternoon at
Dover so long, so long ago!. As he reckoned
up the time, the forgotten lust possessed him ;
it had been even so on Carara, when the periodi-
cal need of a cheque would first steal over his
lonely spirit. He thought now of those occa-
sions and their results; he knew himself of
old; but he was no longer the same man —
resistance would be ridiculous now. He took
another look at the night; then he filled a wine-
glass with raw brandy — raised it—and im-


END OF THE INTERREGNUM 209
“I know it. I’ve known it for hours.”
“That I can see you haven't. Listen to me.
There was no English marriage. Give me your
hand!”
It was limp and cold.
“You don't believe me!” said Claude severely.
Jack subsided in a chair.
“I can't,” he whispered. “I can't.”
“You soon will. I wish to goodness I'd taken
you with me to-day. Now listen: there was
some truth in Hunt's story, but more lies. The
marriage was a lie. There never was a mar-
riage. There was something rather worse at
the time, but a good deal better now. My
grandfather patched it up, exactly as I thought.
He packed my uncle out to Australia, and he
settled two hundred a year on the Hunts, on
the single condition of “perpetual silence as to
the connection between the two families.’ I’ve
seen the covenant, and those are the very words.
The condition has been broken after all these
years. And the Hunts’ income stops to-day.”
Jack had roused himself a little; he was no
longer apathetic, but neither was he yet con-
vinced.
“It seems a lot of money to hush up so small
a matter,” he objected. “Are they sure there
was no more in it than that ?”
P


210 My Lord Duke
“Maitland and Cripps? Perfectly sure;
they've been paying that money for nearly
forty years, and there's never been a hint at a
marriage until now. Certainly there's none in
the settlement. But to make assurance surer,
young Maitland took a cab and drove off to see
his father—who was a partner in '53, but has
since retired—about the whole matter. And I
took another cab, and drove straight to the old
parish church facing the river at Chelsea. I
found the clerk, and he showed me the marriage
register, but there was no such marriage on
that date (or any other) in that church; so why
in any ? One lie means dozens. Surely you'll
agree with me there?”
“I must; it's only the money that sticks with
me. It seems such a case of paying through the
nose. But what had old Maitland to say?”
“Everything,” cried Claude. “He remem-
bered the whole business perfectly, and even
saying to my grandfather much what you're say-
ing to me now. But I’ve told you the kind of
man the old Duke was ; he was a purist of the
purists, besides being as proud as Lucifer, and a
scandal so near home hit him, as you would say,
in both eyes at once. He considered he got
good value for his money when he hushed it up.
They showed me a letter in which he said as


END OF THE INTERREGNUM 211
much. Young Maitland unearthed it after he
had seen his father, and with it others of a later
date, in which the Duke refused to revoke or even
to curtail the allowance on the woman's death.
That's all; but surely it's conclusive enough!
Here we have a first-class firm of solicitors on
the one hand, and a clumsy scoundrel on the
other. Which do you believe? By the way,
they're anxious to prosecute Hunt on all sorts
of grounds if you'll let them.”
“I won't.”
“I think you ought to,” said Claude.
“No, no; too much mud has been stirred up
already; we'll let it rest for a bit.”
“But surely you'll get rid of the Hunts after
this?”
“I’ll see.”
Claude was disappointed; he had looked for
a different reception of his news.
“Do you mean to say you're not convinced
yet?” he cried.
“No,” said Jack, “I’m quite satisfied now;
you hem the thing in on every side. But I wish
to goodness all this had never happened ' "
“So do we all; but if there was a doubt,
surely it was best to set it at rest? If I were
you, I should feel as one does after a bad dream.”
Jack was on his feet.


END OF THE INTERREGNUM 213
nursed the purple smoking-cap that had always
been — and was still—intended for the Duke
of St. Osmund's.
“It was no good,” she cried tragically,
looking from Claude to Jack and back again
at Claude. “I simply couldn't go to bed until
I knew. And now—and now I’m torn two
ways; for pity's sake put me out of one misery.”
“It's all up,” said Jack deliberately. He
owed Lady Caroline a grudge for the shrill
scolding he had heard upstairs, and another
for Olivia's absence from the dinner-table. He
was also curious to see what Lady Caroline
would do.
She sailed straight to Claude, holding the
smoking-cap at arm's length.
“My dear, dear Claude! How I congratu-
late you ! I find, after all, that the smoking-
cap, which was originally intended —”
“Dear Lady Caroline,” interposed Claude
hastily, “everything is as it was. Hunt's story
is a complete fabrication; I'd no idea that you
knew anything about it.”
“I couldn't help telling Lady Caroline,” said
Jack. Lady Caroline turned upon him with
hot suspicion.
“You said it was all
He interrupted her.
»


214 MY LORD DUKE
“I was going to say that it was all up with
Hunt. He loses two hundred a year for his
pains.”
“Is that possible 2° cried her Ladyship.
“It's the case,” said Claude; “so everything
is as it was, and as it should be.”
Lady Caroline exhibited no further trace of
her discomfiture.
“I wish we hadn't all interrupted each
other,” she laughed. “I was about to re-
mark that the smoking-cap, which was origi-
nally intended to have what one may term a
frieze, as well as a dado, of gold lace, will look
much better without the frieze, so there's
really no more to do to it. Take it, my dear,
dear Jack, and wear it sometimes for my sake.
And forgive a mother for what one said about
Olivia's ride. Claude, I shall make another
cap for you; meanwhile, let me congratulate
you — again — on your noble conduct of to-day.
Ah, you neither of you congratulate me on
mine ! Yet I am a woman, and I’ve kept your
joint secret — most religiously—from nine in
the morning to this very hour !”


CHAPTER XVI
“LOVE THE GIFT’’
HER answer was altogether astonishing; she
leant back in the boat and looked him full in
the face. A quick flush tinged her own, and
the incomparable eyebrows were raised and
arched; but underneath there was an honest
tenderness which Olivia was not the girl to
conceal.
“Was that your water-lilies?” said she, but
this was not the astonishing speech. He had
lured her afloat on impudently false pretences;
she had a right to twit him with that.
“There are no water-lilies,” he confessed;
“at least, never mind them if there are. Oh, I
was obliged to make some excuse ! There was
nowhere else where we could talk so well. I
tell you again I have the cheek to love you!
I can’t help it; I’ve loved you ever since that
day in London, and you’ve got to know it for
good or bad. If it makes you very angry, I'll
row you back this minute.” He was resting on
215


216 MY LORD DUKE
his oars under cover of the little island; the
Towers were out of sight.
“Why in the world didn't you speak yester-
day?” was Olivia's extraordinary reply.
“Yesterday?” faltered Jack.
“It was such a chance l’”
“Not for me! My tongue was tied. Olivia,
I was under a frightful cloud yesterday ! You
don't understand —”
“What if I do? What if I did at the time?”
“I don't see how you could,” said Jack.
“Instinctively,” replied Olivia, to screen her
mother. “I knew something was wrong, and
I have since been told what. If only you had
spoken then l’”
She dropped her eyes swiftly; the tear ran
down her cheek.
“But why? Why then, better than now?”
“Because I care, too,” she whispered, so that
the words just travelled to his ear.
“Olivia! My — do you know what you've
said? Do you mean it?”
“Of course I care. I mean that much. You
are different from everybody else.”
“Then — ”
“There must be no “then.’”
“But you said you cared. Tell me — I don't
understand.”


“ LOVE THE GIFT,” 221
“No ; it's the other way about,” she said.
“I am not half good enough for you—you who
were so brave yesterday in your trouble — who
have been so simple always in your prosperity.
It was enough to turn any one's head, but
you —ah, I don't only love you. I admire
you, dear; may God help me to make you
happy!”
They stayed much longer on the lake, finally
disembarking on its uttermost shore, because
Olivia was curious to see how the hut would
look in the first rosy light of her incredible
happiness. And when they came to it, the
sunlight glinted on the new iron roofing; the
pine-trees exhaled their resin in the noon-day
heat following the midnight rain; and the
shadows were shot with golden shafts, where
all was golden to the lovers' eyes.
Jack made a diffident swain; it was the girl
who slipped her hand into his.
“You will never pull it down?” she said.
“We will use it for a summer-house, and to
remind you of your old life. And one day you
will take me out to the Riverina, and show me
the hut you really lived in, and all your old
haunts. Oh, I shouldn't mind if we had both
to go out there for good! A hut would take
far less looking after than the Towers, and I


222 MY LORD DUKE
should have you much more to myself. What
fun it would be l’’
Jack thought this a pretty speech, but the
girl herself was made presently aware of its
insincerity. They had retraced their steps, and
there in front of them, cool and grey in the
mellow August sunshine, with every buttress
thrown up by its shadow, and the very spires
perfectly reflected in the sleeping lake, stood
the stately home which would be theirs for ever,
Olivia saw it with a decidedly new thrill. She
was looking on her future home, and yet her
husband would be this simple fellow ! Wealth
could not cloy, nor grandeur overpower, with
such a mate; that was perhaps the substance
of her thought. It simplified itself next mo-
ment. What had she done to deserve such
happiness? What could she ever do? And a
possible tabernacle in the bush entered into
neither question, nor engaged her fancy any
In Ore.


CHAPTER XVII
AN ANTI-TOXINE
THEY rowed over, and were in mid-water
when the landau drove up to the house. It
had been sent in for Mr. Dalrymple early
in the forenoon. They saw nothing, however,
until they landed, when the equipage was pro-
ceeding on its way to the stables, having de-
posited the guest. At this discovery, the Duke's
excitement knew no bounds, so Olivia urged
him to run on and leave her; and he took
her advice, chiefly regretting that he had missed
the proud moment of welcoming his old boss
in the hall.
Jack regretted this the more when he reached
the house. There was Dalrymple of Carara
beginning his visit by roundly abusing the but-
ler in the very portico The guest was in a
towering passion, the butler in a palsy of senile
agitation; and between them on the step lay
Dalrymple's Gladstone bag.
“What is the matter?” cried Jack, rushing
223


224 MY LORD DUKE
up with a very blank face. “Stebbings, what's
this? What has he done, Mr. Dalrymple?”
“Refused to take in my bag l Says it's the
footman's place l’”
“Then what's he here for? The man must be
drunk. Are you, Stebbings?”
The butler murmured an inarticulate reply.
“Get to your pantry, sir!” roared Jack.
“You shall hear more of this when you are
sober. Old servant or new servant, out you
clear !”
And he took up the bag himself, as Stebbings
gave a glassy stare and staggered off without a
word.
“I’m extremely sorry for losing my temper,”
said Dalrymple, taking Jack's arm as they en-
tered the house; “but it always was rather
short, as I fear I needn't remind you. Really,
though, your disgraceful old retainer would
have provoked a saint. Drunk as fool in the
middle of the day; drunk and insolent. Has
the man been with you long?”
“Only fifty years or so with the family,” re-
plied Jack savagely; “but, by the living Lord,
he may roll up his swag !”
“Ah! I wouldn't be hasty,” said Dalrymple.
“One must make allowances for one's old re-
tainers; they're a privileged class. How good


AN ANTI-TOXINE 225
of you, by the way, to send in for me in such
style ! It prepared me for much. But I am
bound to say it didn't prepare me for all this.
No, I never should have pictured you in such
an absolute palace had I not seen it with my
own eyes!” -
And now the visitor was so plainly impressed
by all he saw, that Jack readily forgave him
the liberty he had taken in rating Stebbings
on his own account. Still the incident rankled.
Dalrymple was the one man in the world be-
fore whom the Duke of St. Osmund's really
did desire to play his new part creditably; and
what could be said for a peer of the realm who
kept a drunken butler to insult his guests?
Jack could have shaken the old reprobate un-
til the bones rattled again in his shrivelled skin.
Dalrymple, however, seemed to think no more
about the matter. He was entirely taken up
with the suits of armour here in the hall:
indeed Olivia discovered him lecturing Jack
on his own trophies in a manner that would
have led a stranger to mistake the guest for
the host.
It may be said at once that this was Dal-
rymple's manner from first to last. It was that
of the school-master to whom the boy who once
trembled at his frown is a boy for evermore.
Q


226 MY LORD DUKE
And it greatly irritated Jack's friends, though
Jack himself saw nothing to resent.
The Duke led his guest into the great draw-
ing-room, and introduced him with gusto to
Lady Caroline Sellwood and to Claude Lafont.
But all his pride was in the visitor, who, with
his handsome cynical face, his distinguished
bearing, and his faultless summer suit, should
show them that at least one “perfect gentle-
man” could come out of Riverina. Jack waited
a moment to enjoy the easy speeches and the
quiet assurance of Dalrymple; then he left
the squatter to Lady Caroline and to Claude.
It was within a few minutes of the luncheon
hour. Jack wanted a word with Stebbings
alone. The more he thought of it, the less
able was he to understand the old butler's ex-
traordinary outbreak. Could he have been ill
instead of drunk? A charitable explanation
was just conceivable to Jack until he opened
the pantry door; it fell to the ground that
moment; for not only did he catch Stebbings
in the act of filling a wine-glass with brandy,
but the butler's breath was foul already with
the spirit.
“Very well, my man,” said Jack slowly.
“Drink as much as you likel You'll hear
from me when you're sober. But show so


AN ANTI-TOXINE 227
much as the tip of your nose in the dining-
room, and I'll throw you through the window
with my own hands !”
The upshot of the matter was indirect and
a little startling; for this was the reason why
Dalrymple of Carara took the head of his old
hand's table at luncheon on the day of his arri-
val; and obviously it was Dalrymple's tempo-
rary occupation of that position, added to his
unforgettable past relations with his host, which
led him to behave exactly as though the table
were his own.
A difficulty about the carving was the more
immediate cause of the transposition. In the
ordinary course, this was Stebbings's business,
which he conducted on the sideboard with due
skill; in his absence, however, the footmen had
placed the dishes on the table; and as these
included a brace of cold grouse, and neither
Jack nor Claude was an even moderate practi-
tioner with the carving-knife, there was a little
hitch. Mr. Sellwood was not present; he took
his lunch on the links; and Jack made no secret
of his relief when the squatter offered to fill the
breach. -
“Capitall” he cried; “you take my place, sir,
and I wish you joy of the billet.” And so the
thing fell out.


228 My LoRD DUKE
It had the merit of seating the Duke and
Olivia side by side; and the happy pair were
made distinctly happier by the mutual discov-
ery that neither had as yet confided in a third
soul. At the foot of the table, in the position
which Jack had begged her to assume at the
outset of her visit, sat Lady Caroline Sellwood.
The clever young men were on opposite sides,
as usual; nor did they fail to exchange those
looks of neglected merit and of intellectual
boredom which were another feature of their
public appearances. Their visit had not been
altogether a success. It was a mystery why
they prolonged it. They had been invited, how-
ever, to spend a month at Maske Towers, which,
after all, was neither an uncomfortable resting-
place nor a discreditable temporary address.
Francis Freke said a Latin grace inaudibly,
and then the squatter went to work at the
birds. These were a present from afar; there
were no moors “on” Maske, as Jack explained,
with a proud eye on Dalrymple's knife. It
flashed through the joints as though the bird
had been already “boned”; on either side the
breast fell away in creamy flakes; and Dalrymple
talked as he carved, with the light touch and the
easy grace of a many-sided man of the world.
At first he seemed to join in everybody's con-


AN ANTI-TOXINE 229
versation in turns; but he was only getting his
team together; and in a little everybody was
listening to him. Yet he talked with such tact
that it was possible for all to put in their word;
indeed, he would appeal first to one, then to
another, so that the general temper of the party
rose to a high level. Only Olivia and Claude
Lafont felt that this stranger was taking rather
much upon himself. Otherwise it was a pleas-
ure to listen to him; he was excellently well
informed; before the end of the meal it came
out that he had actually read Claude's poems.
“And lived to tell the tale !” he added
with characteristic familiarity. “I can tell you
I felt it a risk after reading that terrible de-
preciation of you in the Parthenon; you see,
I've been in England a few days, and have been
getting abreast of things at my hotel while my
tailors were making me externally presentable.
By the way, I ran across a young Australian
journalist who is over here now, and who occa-
sionally scribbles for the Parthenon. I asked
him if he knew who had made that scurrilous
attack upon you, Mr. Lafont. I was interested,
because I knew you must be one of Jack's re-
lations.”
“And did you find out?” inquired Claude,
with pardonable curiosity.


230 MY LORD DUKE
“He found out for me. The culprit was a
man of your name, Mr. Stubbs; no relation, I
hope?”
“I hope not,” said Stubbs, emptying his
glass; and his pallid complexion turned a
sicklier yellow, as though his blood were nico-
tine, and the nicotine had mounted to his face.
“I should like to hear that name in full,”
said Lady Caroline down the length of the table.
“I read the article myself. It was a disgrace
to journalism. It is only fair to our Mr. Stubbs
that we should hear his namesake's Christian
name.”
“I think I can oblige,” said Dalrymple, pro-
ducing his pocket-book. “His name was —ah!
here it is l His name was Edmund. Edmund
Stubbs' "
Edmund Stubbs was not unequal to the occa-
sion. He looked straight at Jack.
“Will you kindly make it convenient to send
me in to Devenholme in time for the next
train?” he said. “If the Australian—gentle-
man—is going to stay in your house, I, for one,
shall trespass no longer on your hospitality.”
“Nor I, for another!” Llewellyn chimed in.
And without further ceremony the mordant
couple left the table and the room. Jack
looked embarrassed, and Claude felt sorry for


AN ANTI-TOXINE 231
Jack. As for Olivia, she had felt vaguely
indignant with Dalrymple ever since he had
taken the head of the table; and this scene put
a point to her feelings, while it also revived her
first prejudice against the squatter. Lady
Caroline, however, congratulated him upon an
excellent piece of work.
“You have performed a public service, my
dear Mr. Dalrymple,” said she. “Dear Jack
will, I know, forgive me when I say that those
two young men have never been in their ele-
ment here. They are all right in a London
drawing-room, as representatives of a certain
type. In a country house they are impossible;
and, for my part, I shall certainly never send
them another card.”
Jack also was ceasing to disapprove of the
humiliation of Edmund Stubbs, whose remarks
overnight in the Poet's Corner had suddenly
recurred to his mind.
“Did you know it was the same man?” said
he, pushing back his chair.
“I’m afraid I did,” replied the squatter, as
he rose. “They told me he was staying down
here, and I could hardly avoid exposing the
fellow. I hope, my dear Jack, that you will
forgive the liberty I undoubtedly took in doing
so. I am the germ that expels the other germs


CHAPTER XVIII
HECKLING A MINISTER
THE engagement became known in the course
of the afternoon, and the news was received in
a manner after all very gratifying to the happy
pair. Lady Caroline Sellwood did indeed insist
on kissing her future son-in-law, but the obvi-
ous attitude she now assumed did not impose
upon him for a moment. He had seen through
her the night before ; he could never believe
in the woman again. In any case, however, her
affectation of blank surprise, and her motherly
qualms concerning the prospective loss of her
ewe lamb, were a little over-acted, even for so
inexperienced an observer as the Duke of St.
Osmund's. She knew it, too, and hated Jack
with all her hollow heart for having found her
out; to him, it was, after this, a relief to listen
to the somewhat guarded observations of Mr.
Sellwood, whose feelings in the matter were
just a little mixed.
Of the rest, Francis Freke volunteered his
233


234 MY LORD DUKE
services for the great event, and both he and
his wife (who brought down her entire speak-
ing family to say good-night to “Uncle Jack”)
were consumed with that genuine delight in the
happiness of others which was their strongest
point. Claude, too, was not only “very nice
about it,” as Olivia said, but his behaviour, in
what was for him a rather delicate situation,
showed both tact and self-control. Never for a
moment did look or word of his suggest the
unsuccessful suitor: though to be sure he had
scarcely qualified for such a rôle. Olivia and
he had never been more than friends. On her
side, at least, the friendship had been of that
perfectly frank and chronic character which is
least likely to develop into love. And no one
knew this better than Claude himself, who, more-
over, was not even yet absolutely sure that his
own undoubted affections were inspired by the
divine impulse for which his poet's heart had so
often yearned. At all events he had thought
upon the one maiden for very many months;
and putting it no higher than this, his present
conduct was that of a tolerably magnanimous
IIlan.
The one person who raised an unsympathetic
eyebrow was Dalrymple the squatter. He seemed
surprised at the news and, for the moment, rather


HECKLING A MINISTER 235
annoyed; but Jack recalled the deplorably
cynical view of women for which the owner
of Carara had been quite notorious in the back-
blocks, and the squatter's displeasure did not
rankle. Nor was it expressed a second time.
Either the sight of the pair together, who made
no secret of their happiness; either this pretty
spectacle, or the dictates of good taste, moved
Dalrymple, ultimately, to the most graceful con-
gratulations they had yet received. And it was
characteristic of the man that his remarks took
the form of an unsolicited speech at the dinner-
table.
He had been only a few hours in the house,
yet to all but Mr. Sellwood (who did not meet
him until evening) the hours seemed days.
For the squatter was one of those men who
carry with them the weight of their own pres-
ence, the breath of an intrinsic power, subtly
felt from the first; thus the little house-party
had taken more notice of him in one afternoon
than the normal stranger would have attracted
in a week; and to them it already seemed inevi-
table that he should lead and that they should
follow whether they would or no. Accordingly,
they were not in the least surprised to see Dal-
rymple on his legs when the crumb-cloth had
been removed; though all but Jack deemed the


236 MY LORD DUKE
act a liberty; and the squatter still adopted the
tone of a master felicitating his men, rather than
that of a guest congratulating his host.
Yet the speech was fluent and full of point;
and the speaker himself made a sufficiently tak-
ing figure, leaning slightly forward, with the
tips of his well-shaped fingers just resting on
the black oak board that dimly reflected them.
An unexceptionable shirt-front sat perfectly on
his full, deep chest, a single pearl glistening
in its centre; and there was a gleam of even teeth
between the close-cropped, white moustache and
the ugly, mobile, nether lip, whence every word
fell distinct and clear of its predecessor. The
Home Secretary had heard a worse delivery
from his own front bench; and he was cer-
tainly interested in the story of the iron hut
and the savages of Northern Queensland, which
Dalrymple repeated with the happiest effect.
Olivia forgave him certain earlier passages on
the strength of these ; her heart was full; only
she could not lift her eyes from the simple chain
about her wrist, for they were dim. The speech
closed with the dramatic climax of the tale;
there had been but one interruption to the flow
of well-chosen words, and that was when the
speaker stopped to blow out a smoking candle
without appealing to his host.


238 MY LORD DUKE
The Home Secretary bent his snowy head:
his rosy face was the seat of that peculiarly
grim expression with which political caricatur-
ists have familiarised the world. Dalrymple's
light eyes twinkled like polished flints; here
was high game worthy of his gun. He took
the empty chair on Mr. Sellwood's left.
“I understand, sir, that you are fatally bitten
with golf?” began the squatter in his airiest
manner. The other lit a cigarette with insolent
deliberation before replying.
“I’m fond of the game,” he said at length,
“if that's what you mean.”
“That was precisely what I did mean. Par-
don me if I used an unparliamentary expression.
I have read a great deal in your English papers
—with which I never permit myself to lose
touch—of the far-reaching ravages of the game.
Certainly the disease must be widespread when
one finds a Cabinet Minister down with the –
golf!”
“We don't pronounce the l,” Mr. Sellwood
observed. “We call it goff.” For though in
political life an imperturbable temper was one
of his most salient virtues, the Home Secretary
was notoriously touchy on the subject of his
only game.
Dalrymple laughed outright.


HECKLING A MINISTER 289
“A sure symptom, my dear sir, of a thoroughly
dangerous case! But pray excuse my levity; I
fear we become a little too addicted to chaff in
the uncivilised wilds. I am honestly most
curious about the game. I'm an old fogey my-
self, and I might like to take it up if it really
has any merits 23.
“It has many,” put in Claude cheerily, to
divert an attack which Mr. Sellwood was quite
certain to resent.
“Has it?” said the squatter incredulously.
“For the life of one I can’t see where those
merits come in. To lay yourself out to hit a
sitting ball! I’d as soon shoot a roosting
hen l’”
“Hear, hear!” cried Jack. “That's exactly
what I say, Mr. Dalrymple.”
The discussion had in fact assumed the con-
stituent elements of a “foursome,” which may
have been the reason why the Home Secretary
was unable any longer to maintain the silence
of dignified disdain.
“I should like to take you out, the two of
you,” he said, “with a driver and a ball between
you. I should like to see which of you would
hit that sitting ball first, and how far !”
“We'll take you on to-morrow!” exclaimed
Jack.


HECKLING A MINISTER 243
“No more would the coronet,” replied Dal-
rymple, replacing the smoking-cap on its owner's
head. “By the way, Jack, where do you keep
your coronet?”
“Where do I keep my coronet?” asked the
Duke of his major-domo. “I’ve never set eyes
on it.”
“I fancy they have it at the bank,” said
Claude.
“And much good it does you there!” ex-
claimed Dalrymple. “Shall I tell you what
I'd do with it if it were mine?” -
“Yes, do,” said Jack, smiling in advance.
“Then come outside and you shall hear. I
am afraid I have shocked your friends sufficiently
for one night. And there's a very fascinating
moon.”


THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 245
Dalrymple shrugged his massive shoulders,
and raised a contemplative eye to the moon, that
lay curled like a silver shaving in the lucid
heavens.
“Oh, yes, I can guess,” he said sardonically.
“And mind you I've nothing against the girl —
I meant you were lucky there. The girl's all
right—if you must marry. I don't dislike a
woman who'll show fight; and she looked like
showing it when I tried on that cracker-night-
cap thing of yours. Oh, certainly If you
were to marry, you couldn't have done better;
the girl's worth fifty of her mother, at any rate.”
“Fifty million 1" cried Jack, somewhat
warmly.
“Fifty million I meant to say,” and the
squatter ran his arm through that of his host.
“Come, don't you mind me, Jack, my boy
You know what an old heathen I am in those
little matters; and we have lots of other things
to talk about, in any case.”
Jack was mollified in a moment. -
“Lots!” he cried. “I don't seem to have
seen anything of you yet, and I'm sure you
haven't seen much of the place. Isn't it a place
and a half 2 Look at the terrace in the moon-
light—and the spires — and the windows—
hundreds of 'em — and the lawn and the tank |


246 MY LORD DUKE
Then there's the inside; you've seen the hall;
but I must show you the picture-gallery and the
State Apartments. Such pictures' They say
it's one of the finest private collections in the
world; there's hardly one of them that isn't by
some old master or another. I’ve heard the
pictures alone are worth half a million of
money!”
“They are,” said Dalrymple.
“You’ve heard so too?”
“Of course; my good fellow, your possessions
are celebrated all the world over; that's what
you don't appear to have realised yet.”
“I can't,” said Jack. “It puts me in a sick
funk when I try! So it would you if you were
suddenly to come in for a windfall like mine—
that is, if you were a chap like me. But you
aren't; you'd be the very man for the billet.”
And Jack stepped back to admire his hero,
who chuckled softly as he smoked, standing at
his full height, with both hands in his pockets,
and the moon like limelight on his shirt.
“It's not a billet I should care about,” said
the squatter; “but it's great fun to find you
filling it so admirably —”
“I don’t; I wish I did,” said Jack, throwing
away the cigar which he had lighted to keep
his guest company.


THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 247
“You do, though. And if it isn't a rude ques-
tion ” Dalrymple hesitated, staring hard —
“I daresay you're very happy in your new life?”
“Of course I’m very happy now. None hap-
pier!”
“But apart from the girl?”
“You can't get apart from her; that's just it.
If I'm to go on being happy in my position, I'll
have to learn to fill it without making myself
a laughing-stock; and the one person who can
teach me will be my wife.”
“I see. Then you begin to like your position
for its own sake?”
“That's so,” replied Jack. He was paring a
cake of very black tobacco for the pipe which
he had stuck between his teeth. Dalrymple
watched him with interest.
“And yet,” said the squatter, “you have
neither acquired a taste for your own most ex-
cellent cigars, nor conquered your addiction to
the vile twist we used to keep on the station l’”
“Well, and that's so, too,” laughed Jack.
“You must give a fellow time, Mr. Dalrymple !”
“Do you know what I thought when I met
you yesterday?” continued Dalrymple, turning
his back to the moon, and looking very hard at
Jack while he sucked at his cigar with his thick,
strong lips. “Do you know how you struck me


THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 249
against the balustrade. Dalrymple turned and
looked: like Melrose Abbey, the grand grey
building was at its best in the “pale moon-
light”; the lichened embrasures met the soft
sky softly; the piercing spires were sheathed in
darkness; and the mountainous pile wore one
uniform tint, from which the lighted windows
stood out like pictures on a wall. Dalrymple
looked, and looked again; then his hard eyes
fell upon the rude ecstasy of the face beside
him ; and they were less hard than before.
“You may make yourself easy,” said the
squatter. “I shan’t stay long.”
“What the blazes do you mean?” cried Jack.
“I want you to stay as long as ever you can.”
“You may; your friends do not.”
“Hang my friends!”
“I should enjoy nothing better; but it isn't
practicable. Besides, they're a good deal more
than your friends now; they are — her people.
And they don’t like the man who was once your
boss; he offends their pride — ”
“Mr. Dalrymple 25
“Enough said, my boy. I know my room, and
I’m going to turn in. We'll talk it over again
in the morning; but my mind is made up. Good-
night!”
“I’ll come in with you.”


THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 251
His things! Was he going, then? Jack's
knife and fork fell with a clatter.
“I thought you knew,” said Claude. “He is
going up to town by the afternoon train. I have
ordered the landau, as I thought you would like
him to go as he came.”
When Jack heard this he, too, left the table,
and bounded upstairs. He found Dalrymple
on the point of packing his dress-clothes, with
the assistance of none other than Stebbings.
Jack glared at the disrated butler, and ordered
him out of the room.
“I wouldn't have done that,” remarked the
squatter, pausing in his work. “The fellow came
to know if he could do anything for me, with
tears in his eyes, and he has made me a hand-
some apology. He didn't ask me to beg him off,
but I mean to try my luck in that way before I
go."
“You mustn't go!”
“I must. Will you forgive the old man?”
“Not if you clear.”
“My good fellow, this is unreasonable
“So it is, Mr. Dalrymple, on your part,” re-
joined Jack warmly. “It's too bad of you.
Bother Stebbings! I shan’t be hard on him,
you may be sure; and you mustn't be hard on
me. Surely you can make allowances for a


THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 253
Downstairs in the drawing-room the Sellwood
family and Claude Lafont were even then con-
gratulating themselves upon the imminent de-
parture of the unpopular guest. Their faces
were so many sights when Jack entered in the
highest spirits to tell them of his successful
appeal to the better feelings of “good old Dal-
rymple,” who after all was not going to leave
them just yet. Jack was out again in an in-
stant; and they next saw him, from the draw-
ing-room windows, going in the direction of
the hut with his odious old friend at his side.
Whereupon Claude Lafont said a strong thing,
for him; and the most sensible of engaged young
women retired in tears to her room.
“There's one thing you must let me do,” Dal-
rymple was saying; “if you don't, I shall insist.
You must let me have the privilege of sorting
that scoundrel, Mark Hunt.”
“Matthew,” said Jack.
“Matthew, then. I knew it was one of you
evangelists.”
“What would you do?” asked the Duke.
“See that he annoyed you no more. And I'll
guarantee that he doesn't if you'll leave him to
me.”
“I didn't want to clear them out —
“I think you must.”
33


254 MY LORD DUKE
“Or to prosecute; it's so public, and a bit
revengeful too.”
“There I agree with you. I'm not even sure
that you'd get a conviction. It would be diffi-
cult, in any case, and would make a public
scandal of it, as you say.”
“Then I will leave him to you. You're the
smartest man I know, Mr. Dalrymple, and al-
ways have been. What you do will be right.
I'll bother my head no more about it. Besides,
anything to keep you with us a few days
longer!”
Dalrymple shrugged his shoulders, but Jack
did not see the gesture, for he was leading the
way through the pines. A moment later they
were at the hut.
The hut amused the squatter. He called it
a colourable imitation. But it did not delight
him as it had delighted Jack; the master bush-
man failed to share his old hand's sentimental
regard for all that pertained to the bush. Dal-
rymple sat on the bunk and smoked a cigar, a
cynical spectator of some simple passages be-
tween Jack and his cats. Livingstone was
exhibited with great pride; he had put on
flesh in the old country; at which the squatter
remarked that had he stayed on Carara, he
would have put on an ounce of lead.


256 MY LORD DUKE
of these days; we shall expect to come on a
long visit to Carara; and the greatest treat you
could give me would be to let me ride my old
boundaries and camp in my old hut for a week!”
“Nonsense; you stay where you are,” was
the squatter's only comment. He seemed de-
pressed; his cynical aplomb had quite deserted
him. They returned in silence to the house.
A shabby-looking vehicle stood in front of
the porch; the man said that he had brought
a gentleman from Devenholme, and was to wait.
The Duke and Dalrymple mounted the steps
together. The first person they encountered in
the hall was Claude Lafont, looking strangely
scared; but a new-comer was in the act of tak-
ing off his coat; and, as he turned his face,
Dalrymple and Jack started simultaneously.
Both knew the man. It was Cripps the law-
yer. And he, too, looked pale, nervous, and
alarmed.


CHAPTER XX
“LOVE THE DEBT *
OLIVIA was not a little tired; this was the
true explanation of the tears which had driven
her upstairs. It was also the one excuse she
saw for herself when she thought the matter
over in her own room. Jack had devoted the
whole morning to her; it was the squatter's
turn; and, of course, Jack must invite whom
he liked to stay as long as he pleased. To
think of limiting his freedom in any such mat-
ter at the very outset of their engagement
Yet she had been guilty of that thought; but
she was tired; she would lie down for an hour.
She lay down for two or three. Excitement
had worn her out. It was after five when she
awoke and went downstairs. As she did so
Claude and Cripps crossed the hall and put
on their hats. She hailed Claude.
“What have you done with Jack?”
“I think you'll find him in the little study
at the end of the library.”
5 257


“ LOVE THE DEBT’’ 259
end of pink tape. She picked and held it up
between finger and thumb.
“Lawyers' " she cried.
“Yes, I’ve had a solicitor here.”
“Not to make your will !”
“No. On a – on a local matter. Don't look
at me like that ' It's nothing much: nothing
new, at all events.”
“But you are worried.”
She knelt beside his chair, and rested her
elbows on the arm, studying his pale set pro-
file. His eyes met hers no longer.
“I am,” he admitted; “but that's my own
fault. As I say—it's nothing new l’”
“Who was the lawyer?”
“You wouldn’t know him.”
“I mean to know who he was. Mr. Cripps?”
Jack did not answer. He rolled his head
from side to side against the back of the chair.
His eyes remained fast upon the opposite wall.
“It is —the old trouble,” Olivia whispered.
“The trouble of two nights ago!”
His silence told her much. The drops upon
his forehead added more. Yet her voice was
calm and undismayed; it enabled him at last
to use his own.
“Yes!” he said hoarsely. “Claude made a
mistake. It was true after all!”


260 MY LORD DUKE”
“Hunt's story, darling?”
“Hunt's story. There was an English mar-
riage as well as an Australian one. He had a
wife at each side of the world! Claude made
a mistake. He went to the wrong church at
Chelsea — to a church by the river. He had
always thought it was the parish church. It is
not. St. Luke's is the parish church, and there
in the book they have the marriage down in
black and white. Cripps found it; but he first
found it somewhere else, where he says they
have the records of every marriage in the coun-
try since 1850. He would have looked there
the day Claude was up, but he left it too late.
He looked yesterday, and found it, sure enough,
on the date Hunt gave. October 22d, 1853.
And he has been to Chelsea and seen it there.
So there's no mistake about it this time; and
you see how we stand.”
“I see. My poor boy!”
“It's Claude after all. Poor chap, he's awfully
cut up. He blames himself so for the mistake
between the two churches; but Cripps tells me
it was the most natural mistake in the world.
Chelsea Old Church — that was where Claude
went. And he says he'll never forgive himself.”
“But I forgive him,” said Olivia, with the first
sign of emotion in her voice. She was holding


“LOVE THE DEBT" 261
one of his hands; her other was in his hair.
Still he stared straight in front of him.
“Of course you forgive him,” he said gently.
“When you come to think of it, there's nothing
to forgive. Claude didn't make the facts. He
only failed to discover them.”
“I am glad he did fail,” whispered Olivia.
“Glad? You can't be glad! Why do you
say that?”
And now he turned his face to her, in his
astonishment; and suddenly it was she who
could not meet his gaze.
“How can you be glad?” he continued to
demand.
“Because — otherwise—you would never—
have — spoken —”
“Spoken? Of course I shouldn't It's a
thousand pities I did. It makes it all the harder
—now !”
“What do you mean?”
“Surely you see?”
They had risen with a common instinct. The
ice was broken; there were no more shamefaced
glances. The girl stood proudly at her full
height.
“I see nothing. You say our engagement
makes this all the harder for you; it should be
just the opposite.”


“ LOVE THE DEBT" 263
“Of course I see. But I don't allow the
objection.”
“Your people would never hear of it now;
and quite right too.”
“My people ! I am of age. I have a little
money of my own, enough for us both. I can
do exactly what I like. Besides, I'm not so
sure about my people; you don't know my
father as I know him.”
“He is a man of the world. He would not
hear of it.”
“Then I must act for myself.”
“You must not l”
“I must. Do you think I am only a fair-
weather girl? I gave you my promise when all
was different. I would rather die than break
it now.”
“But I release you! I set you free! Every-
thing has altered. Oh, can't you put yourself in
my place? I should deserve shooting if I mar-
ried you now. I release you because I must.”
“And I refuse to be released.”
They regarded one another with hopeless
faces. Their eyes were dim with love—yet
here they stood apart. This was the dead-lock.
Nothing could come of this contest of honour
against honour, of one unselfish love against
another. It was like striking flint upon flint,


THE BAR SINISTER 267
nobody knew where. Not that he was gone for
good, the luck stopped short of that. It ap-
peared, however, that he had been excluded by
a majority of two to one from the triangular
council in the Poet's Corner. Since then he
had not been seen; but his bag was still in his
room, and it was only another of his liberties to
absent himself from dinner without a word.
Olivia was playing the piano in the drawing-
room. The windows were wide open, and Mr.
Sellwood listened with his white head bent in
sorrowful perplexity. The execution was faulty,
as usual, because Olivia was an idle musician;
but there was feeling in her fingers, she had a
certain “touch,” and her attempts were better
to listen to than some performances. To-night
they went to her father's heart. The imperfect
music spoke to him with the eloquence of
broken words. It told him of his child's neces-
sity for action in the stress of her anguish. It
told him also of her love; and here was this
poor fellow so taken up with Claude that it
was impossible to say to him what must be said
as soon as possible.
Mr. Sellwood gave it up for the present, and
went to look for his wife.
“There's only one more thing, old man,”
Jack was saying, “and then I’m done. I don't
/


268 MY LORD DUKE
want to load you up to the eyes with messages
and all that. But I should like you to take
care of this little bit of a key, and give it to
her as soon as ever you think fit. It belongs to
that chain bracelet business I got her for her
birthday. As you know, I first wanted to give
her a ring, but she wouldn't have it; and when
I changed it for the bracelet, which cost about
half as many shillings as the ring did pounds,
I couldn't look poor Hopgood in the face. It
was such a sell for him. So we were going
back to-morrow to get that ring for our engage-
ment, and to look old Hopgood in the face.
That was one of our plans; we made so many
when we were out this morning ! I never
knew a morning go at such a lick. But I re-
member it all — I remember everything. I've
started going over every word we’ve said, so
that I shan’t forget anything. There's not
such a vast lot to keep in your head. Only a
day and a half of an engagement; but I’ve got
to live on those thirty odd hours for the rest of
my time.”
Claude looked away; the drawing-room win-
dows were a blur to his eyes; and Olivia's er-
ratic rendering of Chopin filled in the pause.
It was the incoherent expression of unutterable
emotion. Jack listened also, nodding time with


THE BAR SINISTER 269
his head. The calmness and the nobility of
despair had settled on his spirit, as on that of a
captain going down with his ship.
He talked on, and his tone was entirely his
own. It was neither bitter, querulous, nor wil-
fully pathetic ; but chiefly contemplative, with
a reminiscence here and the discovery of some
consolation there. He recalled the humours of
the situation, and laughed outright but staccato,
as at remembered sayings of the newly dead.
Beyond the loss of Olivia he had little to
regret; even that would make another man of
him for ever and a day. (So he talked.) And
his English summer would be something to
look back on always; it was pleasure to the
good, which nothing could undo or take away;
the experience of a second lifetime had been
crammed into those few weeks. Let him re-
member that when he got back to the bush.
Suppose he had never left the bush? Then he
would never have seen the old country, and
seen it (as he said) from the front seats; he
would never have found his own soul, nor known
the love of a lovely girl, nor the joy of life as he
knew it now. So he was really to be congratu-
lated to the end; there was no occasion to pity
him at all.
Claude, however, was not comforted; he had


270 MY LORD DUKE
never been so wretched in his life. And he
showed it so plainly, and was withal so con-
scious of the display, that he felt quite sure
that Jack's ingenious consolations were not
meant entirely for Jack. He was ashamed of
himself on this, as on every other score. He
was to blame for the whole business, since it
was he who had scoured Australia for the Red
Marquis's son. Nor could he believe the other's
protestations of personal solace and resignation;
they had been made with wistful glances at
the lighted windows, glances that Claude had
seen as they both leant back against the balus-
trade.
“Aha!” said Jack suddenly. “Here are Mr.
Sellwood and Lady Caroline coming to have
it out with me. Better leave me to them, old
man.”
“All right,” said Claude, “but we have lots
more to talk about. Where can I find you, and
when 2 ”
Jack hesitated; the Sellwoods were within
earshot as he whispered, “Twelve o'clock at the
hut!” And Claude walked away, with his
hand aching from a sudden and most crushing
grip.
“My wife and I would like to speak to you,”
said the Home Secretary, halting in front of


THE BAR sinistER 271
Jack with Lady Caroline on his arm. “My
dear fellow, we are so very sorry for you: we
know everything.”
“Everything!” echoed Lady Caroline, with
slow dramatic force.
“Thanks to Jack,” put in her husband sharply;
“it was he who gave instructions that we should
be told at once. It was so very good of you,
Jack, my boy, to think of us in your trouble.
You have behaved splendidly all through; that's
what makes us all feel this so keenly; and I am
quite sure that you will behave nobly now. My
dear fellow, it isn't the fact of your not being
the Duke of St. Osmund's that forces me to take
this tone; it's the unfortunate circumstances of
your birth, which have now been proved, I am
afraid, beyond the possibility of that doubt
which nobody would welcome more thankfully
than myself. We are all very fond of you. I
for one have learned to admire you too. But
this most miserable discovery must alter every-
thing except our feeling towards you. We are
bound to consider our daughter.”
“Our youngest child,” said Lady Caroline.
“Our ewe lamb l’”
“Of course,” replied Jack. “I see what you
mean. What do you want me to do?”
“It may seem very hard,” said Mr. Sellwood,


THE BAR SINISTER 273
marry her, knowing what I am. It's out of the
question altogether. But Olivia is quite on to
do it—at least she thought she was before din-
ner. I haven't seen her since. I'm not going
to see her again. She's just the sort of angel
who would swap heaven for hell to stand by
the man she was fond of ! But she mustn't be
let. I agree with you there. It was the first
thing I thought of myself. I made up my mind
to clear out; and, if you want to know, I'm
off now.”
“Now!” cried Mr. Sellwood.
Lady Caroline said nothing.
“Yes, now; there's no more to be said; and
the sooner I get it over the better for all con-
cerned.”
“But, my dear fellow, where are you going,
and what do you intend to do? Have you
made any plans? I wouldn't do anything in a
hurry if I were you; we're a family party here;
and all our wits put together would surely be
better than yours! We might fix up something
between us.”
Jack shook his head.
“You’re very kind,” he said; “but it's all
fixed up. I’m going straight back to the bush.
This is Thursday; I can't catch to-morrow's
steamer, but I can do better. I can take the
T


274 MY LORD DUKE
overland express to-morrow night, and join last
week's boat at Brindisi. I’m going to sleep the
night—never mind where. I don't want old
Claude on my tracks; I've said good-bye to him
too, though he doesn't know it either. He wants
to do too much for me altogether. If you stay
up with him till twelve, he'll tell you he's got
to look me up at the hut; and you may tell him,
sir, if you'll be so good, to sit tight, for he won't
find me there. Say good-bye to him for me, and
tell him he's been the best mate I’ve ever struck;
but don't let him come up and see me off.
Cripps I'm to meet in town. I'm going to let
them finance me out again, since they fetched
me home in the beginning; but not another red
cent will I touch. Why should I? I’ve had a
good run for my money—that is, for theirs.
I’m no worse off than I was before. I should
even be sure of the same old billet on Carara
that used to suit me well enough, if I only could
see Mr. Dalrymple before I start; but I’m both-
ered if I know where he's got to.”
Mr. Sellwood was heavy with thought; his
wife had left them; and he had heard a sob in her
throat as she turned away. He had an inkling
of her treatment of this poor fellow; he did not
know everything, but he knew enough to hail
his wife's sob with a thankful thrill. So there


THE BAR SINISTER 275
was a heart in her somewhere still ! He had
thought otherwise for some years; in another
moment he doubted it once more. Lady Caro-
line appeared at the drawing-room window, shut
it, and drew down the blind. And yet—and
yet her husband had himself been wishing for
somebody to do that very thing!
Olivia was still at the piano, and her perform-
ance had sounded a little too near at hand until
now. It was near enough still; but the shut-
ting of the window deadened the sound. Chopin
had merged into Mendelssohn. Olivia happened
to be note-perfect in one or two of the Lieder.
Her father had never heard her play them so
well. But Jack had no music in his soul—
could not whistle two bars in tune—and though,
even while speaking, he listened visibly, it was
not to the music as music, but to the last sound
of Olivia he was ever to hear. Her footstep in
the distance would have done as well.
“I wouldn't go to-night, old fellow,” the Home
Secretary said at length. “I see no point in it.
To-morrow would be time enough.”
“Ah, you must think I find it easy work!”
exclaimed Jack, a little bitterly for once. “It’s
not so easy as all that: it's got to be done
at once, when you're screwed up to it, or it may
never come off at all. Don't you try to keep


276 MY LORD DUKE
me; don't let anybody else try either! Let me
go while I'm on to go — alone. I might take it
different to-morrow !”
He spoke hoarsely; the voice was as signifi-
cant as the words. Mr. Sellwood was impressed
by both; he followed the other to the nearest
flight of steps leading down to the lawn.
“Let me come with you,” he urged. “Surely
there is something one can do! And I’ve never
seen the hut; I should like to.”
“Wait till I've gone,” was the reply. “I want
you to stand in my tracks and block anybody
from following me. Head them another way!
Only give me quarter of an hour to clear out of
the hut, and another quarter's start, and I'm—
and I'm —”
He lost himself in a sudden absence of mind.
The music had stopped, and the night seemed
insolently still. Jack was half-way down the
steps; the Home Secretary leaned over the
balustrade above. Jack reached up his hand.
“Good-bye,” he said.
Mr. Sellwood, hesitating, kept his hand. The
window that had been shut was thrown up again.
“Papa, is that you?”
“Yes, my dear.”
Mr. Sellwood had turned round.
“And where is Jack?”


THE BAR SINISTER 277
“Not here,” whispered Jack.
“Not here,” repeated Mr. Sellwood; and,
looking behind him, he found that he had
spoken the truth.
“Then I'm coming down to you, and you
must help me — ”
Jack lost the rest as he ran. He thought he
heard his own name again, but he was not sure.
He stopped under the nearest tree. Mercifully
there was no moon. Olivia could not have seen
him, for he himself could see no more of the
Towers than the lighted windows and their re-
flections upon the terrace. On that dim stage
the silhouette of Mr. Sellwood was still discern-
ible: another joined it: the two figures became
one: and in the utter stillness not only the girl's
sobs but her father's broken words were audible
under the tree.
Jack fled.
He ran hard to the hut, and lighted it up as
it had never been lighted before. He cut up a
candle in half-inch sections, and stuck them all
over with their own grease. Thoroughness was
an object as well as despatch; nothing must be
missed; but his first act was to change his
clothes. He put on the ready-made suit and
the wideawake in which he had landed;
he had kept them in the hut. Then he


THE BAR SINISTER 279
But his head was hot with other thoughts, and
he was out of practice. Instead of hitting the
wall, and following it up to the gates, as he in-
tended, he erred the other way, and came out
upon the drive at no great distance from the
house. This was a false start, indeed, and a
humiliation also ; but his thoughts had strayed
back to Olivia, and it was as if his feet had
followed their lead. He would think of her
no more to-night.
The drive was undesirable, for obvious reasons;
still it was the safest policy to keep to it now,
and the chances were that he would meet no-
body. Yet he did; a footstep first, and then
the striking of a match, came to his ears as he
was nearing the gates. He crept under the
trees. The match was struck again, and yet
again, before it lit. Then Jack came out of hid-
ing, and strode forward without further qualms,
for the flame was lighting the cigar and illumin-
ing the face of his friend Dalrymple.
“Hallo, sir!” began Jack, “I’d given you
up.”
“Why, Jack, is that you? I can't see an inch
front of my cigar,” said the squatter, as the
match burnt itself out on the gravel where it
had been thrown.
“Yes, it's me; where have you been 2"


280 MY LORD DUKE
“Where are you going?”
“Mine first,” said Jack.
“All right. I’ve been talking to Master Hunt.
Now where are you going?”
“Back to Australia l’”
Jack waited for an exclamation; for some
seconds there was none; then the squatter
laughed softly to himself.
“I thought as much l’” said he. “I knew
exactly what the lawyer came to say, for I saw
it in his face. Now tell me, and we'll see if I’m
right.”
And it appeared that he was, by the way in
which he kept nodding his head as Jack told him
all. Meanwhile they had retired under the trees,
and by the red end of his cigar the squatter
had seen Jack's wideawake; using his cigar as
a lantern he had examined the cage of cats;
whereon his face would have proved a suffi-
ciently severe commentary had there been any
other light for Jack to see it by.
“Now,” said Dalrymple, “stand tight. I've
got something to tell you, my boy!” And he
told it in the fewest whispered words.
Jack was speechless.
“Nonsense ! I don't believe it,” he cried
when he found his tongue.
“But I’m in a position to prove it,” replied


THE BAR SINISTER 281
the squatter. “I’ll give you a particular or two
as we walk back to the house. What! you
hesitate? Come, come; surely my word is good
enough for that I Do be sensible; leave your
infernal cats where they are, and come you along
with me!”


CHAPTER XXII
DE MORTUIS
THE Home Secretary had never spent a more
uncomfortable hour. His favourite daughter
had stanched her tears, and gone straight to the
root of the very delicate matter at issue between
them. Much as her tears had depressed him,
however, Mr. Sellwood preferred them to the
subsequent attitude. It was too independent
for his old-fashioned notions, and yet it made
him think all the more of Olivia. Indeed she
was her father's child in argument—spirited and
keen and fair. His point of view she took for
granted, and proceeded to expound her own.
Much that she said was unanswerable; a little
made him fidget—for between the sexes there
is no such shyness as that which a father finds
in his heart towards his grown-up girls. But a
certain bluntness of speech was not the least
refreshing trait in Olivia's downright character,
and decidedly this was not a matter to be
glossed over with synonyms for a spade. She
282


DE MORTUIS 283
wanted to know how the circumstances of the
birth affected the value of the man — and so
forth. Mr. Sellwood replied as a man of the
world, and detested his replies. But the worst
was his guilty knowledge of Jack's flight. This
made him detest himself; it made him lie; and
it filled him with a relief greater than his sur-
prise when voices came out of the darkness of
the drive, and one of them was Jack's.
Olivia ran forward.
“At last ! Oh, Jack, where have you been?”
Mr. Sellwood never heard the answer; he was
bristling at the touch of Dalrymple, who had led
him aside.
“Entirely my doing,” explained the squatter;
“but I can justify it. I mean to do so at once.
Am I right in understanding the bar sinister to
be your only objection to our friend?”
“You may put it so,” said Mr. Sellwood
shortly.
“Then I shall have the pleasure of removing
the objection: the bar doesn't exist.”
“Your grounds for thinking so, Mr. Dal-
rymple?”
“I don’t think. I know. And I’m here to
prove what I know. Good heavens, do you
suppose he was no more to me than one of my
ordinary station hands? He was the son—at


284 MY LORD DUKE
all events, the stepson — of one of my oldest
friends.”
“The stepson 1 May I ask the name of your
friend ?”
“It is unnecessary. You have guessed it. I
have a good deal to explain. Where can we
go?' I should like Lafont and Cripps to hear
what I’ve got to say. Cripps especially — he
will be able to check half my facts.”
“I think we ought all to hear them,” remarked
Sellwood; “we are all interested and concerned.”
“You mean the ladies? I would rather not;
you can tell them afterwards; and as to the
young lady, you may make your mind easy about
her. If that was the only obstacle, I undertake
to remove it. You can afford to trust her out of
your sight.”
“I shall mind my own business,” snapped the
Home Secretary; nevertheless, he led the way
indoors with no more than a glance towards
Olivia and her lover, who were still within hail;
and five minutes later, as many gentlemen were
empanelled in the billiard-room. Claude and
Cripps and Mr. Sellwood occupied the couches
at one end; Francis Freke palpitated in a cor-
ner; and Dalrymple leant against the table, his
legs crossed, his arms folded, a quiet smile upon
his face. He was waiting for a clock over the


DE MORTUIS 289
“In a nasty story !” cried the squatter, with
his sardonic laugh. “No, not quite that; it's
too strong a word. Still I am not here to white-
wash the Marquis of Maske; indeed, the next
feature of the case is wholly indefensible. You
must know that all this time the exile nourished
the most venomous feelings towards his family
in general and the old Duke in particular. Un-
lovely as they were, however, I still think there
was some excuse for such sentiments; the boy
had been harshly treated; he was literally forced
to desert his first wife; had they lived together,
in England or elsewhere, not a penny-piece
would have been theirs until the death of the
Duke. Hence the silence of the Hunts — for
the consideration you wot of. It wasn't the sort
of arrangement that would have gone on very
long had the woman lived, or left a child; but
she died childless, as you know; and the Hunts’
subsequent policy was obvious even to the
Hunts. Nor was it an arrangement calculated
to increase a young man's respect for his father;
in the case of Maske it intensified contempt,
and created the craving for revenge. I have
heard him speak so often of that revenge | He
would spring an Australian heir upon the family;
that was his first, and, as you know, his very
last idea. He even spoke of it, as I understand,
U.


DE MORTUIS 291
a tone that made Dalrymple laugh heartily as
he faced about.
“It looks all right, eh? That's all right!
Mr. Cripps, your discernment—but excuse me !
We are not here to bark and bite; we are here
to clear up a mystery, at least I am. Is there
any other point, gentlemen, which I can eluci-
date before we go any further?”
“I think there is one,” said Claude, speaking
nervously. “I have seen the last letter my
uncle wrote, in which he mentioned an heir. I
presume, in order to carry out the revenge you
speak of, he called the living child by the dead
child's name — ”
“Exactly. He did it deliberately. I was
coming to that.”
“But he seemed uncertain as to the living
child's whereabouts. My point is this: where
was the so-called heir at the time that last letter
was written ?”
“Lost,” said Dalrymple, shutting his ugly lips
as you shut a window. “Lost in the bush, like
Maske himself, only the child's body was not
found. The father had tattooed one of the
eagles of his crest upon the little chap's chest
— I am afraid, to further his deception. I was
in all his secrets, as you see; indeed, you may
call me his accomplice without offending me;


294 MY LORD DUKE
the taste; but I don't intend to run the risk any
more. I am lucky enough to own one of the
crack sheep-stations of New South Wales. I
shall want a permanent manager in my absence.
I needn't tell you who is the very man for that
billet. Jack Greenfield—if he'll take it.”
“A good house?” said Mr. Sellwood casually.
“The best homestead in the Riverina. Trust
me for that.”
Mr. Sellwood said no more. His mind was
made up : better lose his daughter than have
her break her heart. He could not forget the
earlier experiences of the evening. The sur-
prises of this hour were enchanting compared
with the embarrassments of the last. Then he
had no reason to doubt Dalrymple's word as to
Jack's actual antecedents; where he doubted it,
was in another matter altogether. At this point
in his reflections, however, and with the inevi-
table discussion of the immaterial points still
raging around him, Mr. Sellwood was brought
to his feet by the violent opening of the billiard-
room door and an agitated apparition of his
wife upon the threshold. Something was the
matter: had the lovers eloped? No; with Mary
Freke they were at the heels of Lady Caroline,
who came the length of the room at something
ludicrously like a run — her very fringe awry,


296 MY LORD DUKE
Maske was found dead in the bush ; of that we
have absolute proof. Even if we hadn't, who
has recognized him? Has he one single witness
to his identity? If so, let him be called !”
“The gentleman is excited,” remarked Dal-
rymple, ringing the bell. “Does it really not
occur to him that I might have found myself
dead in the bush, and authenticated my own
death by very obvious methods? Is it incon-
ceivable that a young man with my then repu-
tation should jump at the chance of dying on
paper — if you will permit the expression?
Such a death offers unusual advantages, a sec-
ond birth among others. However, I never
meant to be born again, least of all in this rather
melodramatic manner; but I couldn't resist com-
ing home to see the fun, and it serves me right
to have to stop and pay the score. Witnesses?
I had certainly no intention of calling any to-
night; but now that my hand has been forced
it can’t be helped. The elder Hunt is one; knew
me at sight; and here comes Stebbings for an-
other. Shut the door behind you, Stebbings, and
answer a couple of questions. It's generally
supposed that you were drunk yesterday when I
arrived. Were you, or were you not?”
“I was not, your Grace.”
“‘Your Grace,' you see "repeated the squat-


DE MORTUIS 297
ter. “I’m afraid that was premature, Steb-
bings However, if you were not drunk, and
you certainly conveyed that impression, what
was the matter with you?”
“Nervousness!” cried Stebbings, who was
sufficiently nervous now. “I had seen the
dead! I had recognised your Grace l’”
“Exactly; and I swore at you as a blind, to
explain the complete state of collapse that you
were in. That's all, Stebbings; you may go.
Jack, I see your face | You wonder you didn't
spot it at the time? Stebbings backed me up,
or else you would have done; for my part, I
confess I was more frightened when you found
us talking together in my room, when I was
packing. I assure you all, I meant to clear out
then; believe it or not, it's the case. In spite
of what I said just now, I’m not so wedded to
an English life as I fancied Jack was ; and I
had no idea at the time that his position was at
all insecure. Yes, my boy, you were welcome
to the whole thing ! I was going back to the
bush 22
“You were going back!” cried Jack, coming
forward; and Olivia came also, flushed with a
joy that rendered her uniquely indifferent to
the great disclosure. Jack was hers. What
did it matter who was the Duke 2


DE MORTUIS 299
Claude was very pale; the other's honest
eyes were shining with sympathy beneath their
bushy brows; but the new Duke laughed
aloud.
“Lost everything?” he cried. “Not a bit
of it! I'm not going to live for ever, and
Claude's exactly where he was — the next man
in. You think not? And have you known
me all these years, and do you really and truly
expect me to marry again? Jack—my boy—
have I to tell you how it is with me? I have
been a bad old lot in my time; but one woman
I once loved well enough to spoil me for ever
for all the rest.”
He paused an instant, and it was quite a
tender hand he laid on Jack's shoulder.
“And there's one man I love for her sake!”


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