Jocelyn.

'Cogglesby's nominee, apparently.'

'I know it all,' said the Countess. 'We need have no apprehension. He is
docile. My brother-in-law's brother, you see, is most eccentric. We can
manage him best through this Mr. Raikes, for a personal application would
be ruin. He quite detests our family, and indeed all the aristocracy.'

Melville's mouth pursed, and he looked very grave.

Sir John remarked: 'He seems like a monkey just turned into a man.'

'And doubtful about the tail,' added the Countess.

The image was tolerably correct, but other causes were at the bottom of
the air worn by John Raikes. The Countess had obtained an invitation for
him, with instructions that he should come early, and he had followed
them so implicitly that the curricle was flinging dust on the hedges
between Fallow field and Beckley but an hour or two after the chariot of
Apollo had mounted the heavens, and Mr. Raikes presented himself at the
breakfast table. Fortunately for him the Countess was there. After the
repast she introduced him to the Duke: and he bowed to the Duke, and the
Duke bowed to him: and now, to instance the peculiar justness in the mind
of Mr. Raikes, he, though he worshipped a coronet and would gladly have
recalled the feudal times to a corrupt land, could not help thinking that
his bow had beaten the Duke's and was better. He would rather not have
thought so, for it upset his preconceptions and threatened a revolution
in his ideas. For this reason he followed the Duke, and tried, if
possible, to correct, or at least chasten the impressions he had of
possessing a glaring advantage over the nobleman. The Duke's second
notice of him was hardly a nod. 'Well!' Mr. Raikes reflected, 'if this is
your Duke, why, egad! for figure and style my friend Harrington beats him
hollow.' And Raikes thought he knew who could conduct a conversation with
superior dignity and neatness. The torchlight of a delusion was
extinguished in him, but he did not wander long in that gloomy cavernous
darkness of the disenchanted, as many of us do, and as Evan had done,
when after a week at Beckley Court he began to examine of what stuff his
brilliant father, the great Mel, was composed. On the contrary, as the
light of the Duke dwindled, Raikes gained in lustre. 'In fact,' he said,
'there's nothing but the title wanting.' He was by this time on a level
with the Duke in his elastic mind.

Olympus had been held in possession by the Countess ab