ncestors, I'm sure, and I particularly don't want to be mixed up
with the existing Bertrams in any way."

He was happily innocent and ignorant of the natural interpretation the
others would put upon his reticence, after the true English manner; but
still he was vaguely aware, from the silence that ensued for a moment
after he ceased, that he must have broken once more some important
taboo, or offended once more some much-revered fetich. To get rid of
the awkwardness he turned quietly to Frida. "What do you say, Mrs.
Monteith," he suggested, "to a game of tennis?"

As bad luck would have it, he had floundered from one taboo headlong
into another. The Dean looked up, open-mouthed, with a sharp glance of
inquiry. Did Mrs. Monteith, then, permit such frivolities on the Sunday?
"You forget what day it is, I think," Frida interposed gently, with a
look of warning.

Bertram took the hint at once. "So I did," he answered quickly. "At
home, you see, we let no man judge us of days and of weeks, and of times
and of seasons. It puzzles us so much. With us, what's wrong to-day can
never be right and proper to-morrow."

"But surely," the Dean said, bristling up, "some day is set apart in
every civilised land for religious exercises."

"Oh, no," Bertram replied, falling incautiously into the trap. "We do
right every day of the week alike,--and never do poojah of any sort at
any time."

"Then where do you come from?" the Dean asked severely, pouncing down
upon him like a hawk. "I've always understood the very lowest savages
have at least some outer form or shadow of religion."

"Yes, perhaps so; but we're not savages, either low or otherwise,"
Bertram answered cautiously, perceiving his error. "And as to your other
point, for reasons of my own, I prefer for the present not to say where
I come from. You wouldn't believe me, if I told you--as you didn't, I
saw, about my remote connection with the Duke of East Anglia's family.
And we're not accustomed, where I live, to be disbelieved or doubted.
It's perhaps the one thing that really almost makes us lose our tempers.
So, if you please, I won't go any further at present into the debatable
matter of my place of origin."

He rose to stroll off into the gardens, having spoken all the time in
that peculiarly grave and dignified tone that seemed natural to him
whenever any one tried to question him closely. Nobody save a churchman
would have continued the discussion. But the Dean was a