and."

"Continental?"

"Always your Englishman, however excited and of whatever rank, knows
there are things a gentleman doesn't do. Those people to-night had not
that knowledge. Very interesting," he added.

Christopher peacefully smoked, his body well spread out in the chair,
his broad rather clumsy-looking fingers clutching devotedly at his
pipe.

"So you were at the funeral the other day?"

"I was. I expect I mourned her more sincerely than any of you. I'd never
seen her, but she meant a lot to me--as a symbol. And I like symbols
better than human beings."

He pulled his body together with a little jerk and leaned forward:
"Christopher, do you remember, a long while ago, going into a gallery in
Bond Street and meeting Lady Adela Beaminster there and Lady Seddon? It
was just after Ross's portrait was first shown."

"I remember," said Christopher, nodding his head. "You were there."

"I was. I was there with Arkwright the African explorer man. I only
mention the day because Arkwright was interested in Lady Seddon, wanted
to know all about her, and I talked a bit, I remember. My point to him
was that there was a situation between that girl and her grandmother
that would be worth anybody's watching. I followed it myself for a while
and then I lost it. But you're a friend of the family--tell me,
Christopher, what happened between those two."

"Nothing," Christopher said, laughing.

"Oh, nonsense," Brun answered. "They were all in it. Something went on.
Then Seddon had that accident ... Breton was in it."

But Christopher only smiled.

"Well, if you won't--_n'importe_--I have my own idea of it all. That
girl was a fine girl, and the old woman was fine too--

"But how they must have hated one another!"

He chuckled; then sitting back in his chair, his little eyes on the
ceiling, he said almost to himself--"Once, years ago, when I was very,
very young and romantic--almost--just for a year or two I loved your
Shelley. He was everything--I could quote him by the page.... He's gone
from me now, or most of him has, but there was one line that seemed to
me then the most romantic thing I had ever read and has remained with
me always. It went--'And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's
wood'--It's in the letter to Maria Gisborne, I think--I've quite
forgotten what the context is now--it's all pretty trivial and
unimportant, but those were the days when I made pictures--I saw it!
Lord, Christopher, how it comes