LDUFF.

In a room of a Roman palace large enough to be a church, but furnished
with all the luxury of an English drawing-room, stood Lord Culduff, with
his back to an ample fire, smoking a cigarette; a small table beside him
supported a very diminutive coffee-service of chased silver, and in a
deep-cushioned chair at the opposite side of the fireplace lay a toy
terrier, asleep.

There were two fireplaces in the spacious chamber, and at a
writing-table drawn close to the second of these sat Temple Bramleigh
writing. His pen as it ran rapidly along was the only sound in the
perfect stillness, till Lord Culduff, throwing the end of his cigarette
away, said, "It is not easy to imagine so great an idiot as your worthy
brother Augustus."

"A little selfishness would certainly not disimprove him," said Temple,
coldly.

"Say sense, common sense, sir; a very little of that humble ingredient
that keeps a man from walking into a well."

"I think you judge him hardly."

"Judge him hardly! Why, sir, what judgment can equal the man's
own condemnation of himself? He has some doubts--some very grave
doubts--about his right to his estate, and straightway he goes and
throws it into a law-court. He prefers, in fact, that his inheritance
should be eaten up by lawyers than quietly enjoyed by his own family.
Such men are usually provided with lodgings at Hanwell; their friends
hide their razors, and don't trust them with toothpicks."

"Oh, this is too much: he may take an extreme view of what his duty is
in this matter, but he 's certainly no more mad than I am."

"I repeat, sir, that the man who takes conscience for his guide in
the very complicated concerns of life is unfit to manage his affairs.
Conscience is a constitutional peculiarity, nothing more. To attempt to
subject the business of life to conscience would be about as absurd as
to regulate the funds by the state of the barometer."

"I 'll not defend what he is doing--I 'm as sorry for it as any one; I
only protest against his being thought a fool."

"What do you say then to this last step of his, if it be indeed true
that he has accepted this post?"

"I'm afraid it is; my sister Ellen says they are on their way to
Cattaro."

"I declare that I regard it as an outrage. I can give it no other name.
It is an outrage. What, sir, am I, who have reached the highest rank
of my career, or something very close to it; who have obtained my
Grand Cross; who stand, as I feel I d