s such an intimation from Lady Evenswood had enjoyed the
rank of a command; Lord Southend received it with proper obedience.

"The solution I spoke of has occurred to some of us," he went on. "He's
poor now, but with that he could make a marriage. The case is very
exceptional----"

"So is what you propose, George."

"Oh, there are precedents. It was done in the Bearsdale case."

"There was a doubt there." Lady Evenswood knew all about the Bearsdale
case; though it was ancient history to Southend, she had danced with
both the parties to it.

"The House was against the marriage unanimously." But he did not deny
the doubt.

"Well, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"It would be necessary to approach Disney." Southend spoke with some
appearance of timidity. Mr Disney was Prime Minister. "And the truth is,
none of us seemed to like the job. So John Fullcombe suggested you."

"What brave men you are!" Her face wrinkled humorously.

"Well, he might bite us, and he couldn't bite you--not so hard anyhow."

"And you want me to ask for a higher rank! That wasn't done in the
Bearsdale case, nor in any other that I ever heard of."

"We shouldn't press that. A barony would do. But if Disney thought that
under the very exceptional circumstances a viscounty----"

"I don't see why you want it," she persisted. The slight embarrassment
in Southend's manner stirred the old lady's curiosity. "It's rather odd
to reward a man for his mother's----. There, I don't say a word about
Addie. I took her to her first ball, poor girl."

"Disney used to know her as a girl."

"If you're relying on Robert Disney's romantic memories----" But she
stopped, adding after a pause, "Well, one never knows. But again, why a
viscounty?"

Driven into a corner, but evidently rather ashamed of himself, Southend
explained.

"The viscounty would be more convenient if a match came about between
him and the girl."

"What, the new Lady Tristram? Well, George, romance has taken possession
of you to-day!"

"Not at all," he protested indignantly. "It's the obviously sensible way
out."

"Then they can do it without a viscounty."

"Oh, no, not without something. There's the past, you see."

"And a sponge is wanted? And the bigger the sponge the better? And I'm
to get my nose bitten off by asking Robert Disney for it? And if by a
miracle he said yes, for all I know somebody else might say no!"

This dark reference to the Highest Quarters caused S