d was to be preferred through Tregear. If so, it was proof
of a certain anxiety as to the matter on his son's part which was not
displeasing to him. But he was not left long in this mistake after
Tregear had entered the room. "Sir," he said, speaking quite at once,
as soon as the door was closed behind him, but still speaking very
slowly, looking beautiful as Apollo as he stood upright before his
wished-for father-in-law--"Sir, I have come to you to ask you to give
me the hand of your daughter." The few words had been all arranged
beforehand, and were now spoken without any appearance of fear
or shame. No one hearing them would have imagined that an almost
penniless young gentleman was asking in marriage the daughter of the
richest and greatest nobleman in England.

"The hand of my daughter!" said the Duke, rising from his chair.

"I know how very great is the prize," said Frank, "and how unworthy I
am of it. But--as she thinks me worthy--"

"She! What she?"

"Lady Mary."

"She think you worthy!"

"Yes, your Grace."

"I do not believe it." On hearing this, Frank simply bowed his head.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Tregear. I do not mean to say that I do not
believe you. I never yet gave the lie to a gentleman, and I hope
I never may be driven to do so. But there must be some mistake in
this."

"I am complying with Lady Mary's wishes in asking your permission to
enter your house as her suitor." The Duke stood for a moment biting
his lips in silence. "I cannot believe it," he said at last. "I
cannot bring myself to believe it. There must be some mistake. My
daughter! Lady Mary Palliser!" Again the young man bowed his head.
"What are your pretensions?"

"Simply her regard."

"Of course it is impossible. You are not so ignorant but that you
must have known as much when you came to me."

There was so much scorn in his words, and in the tone in which they
were uttered, that Tregear in his turn was becoming angry. He had
prepared himself to bow humbly before the great man, before the Duke,
before the Croesus, before the late Prime Minister, before the man
who was to be regarded as certainly one of the most exalted of the
earth; but he had not prepared himself to be looked at as the Duke
looked at him. "The truth, my Lord Duke, is this," he said, "that
your daughter loves me, and that we are engaged to each other,--as
far as that engagement can be made without your sanction as her
father."

"It cannot have been made