nd-twenty years; but the jealous hate was not dead yet.

Cecile took off his hunting-cap with a courtesy that sat very well on
his habitual languid nonchalance; he never called his father anything
but "Royal"; rarely saw, still less rarely consulted him, and cared
not a straw for his censure or opinion; but he was too thoroughbred by
nature to be able to follow the underbred indecorum of the day which
makes disrespect to old age the fashion. "You sent for me?" he asked,
taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

"No, sir," answered the old lord curtly; "I sent for your brother. The
fools can't take even a message right now, it seems."

"Shouldn't have named us so near alike; it's often a bore!" said Bertie.

"I didn't name you, sir; your mother named you," answered his father
sharply; the subject irritated him.

"It's of no consequence which!" murmured Cecil, with an expostulatory
wave of his cigar. "We're not even asked whether we like to come into
the world; we can't expect to be asked what we like to be called in it.
Good-day to you, sir."

He turned to move away to the house, but his father stopped him; he knew
that he had been discourteous--a far worse crime in Lord Royallieu's
eyes than to be heartless.

"So you won the Vase yesterday?" he asked pausing in his walk with his
back bowed, but his stern, silver-haired head erect.

"I didn't--the King did."

"That's absurd, sir," said the Viscount, in his resonant and yet
melodious voice. "The finest horse in the world may have his back broke
by bad riding, and a screw has won before now when it's been finely
handled. The finish was tight, wasn't it?"

"Well--rather. I have ridden closer spins, though. The fallows were
light."

Lord Royallieu smiled grimly.

"I know what the Shire 'plow' is like," he said, with a flash of his
falcon eyes over the landscape, where, in the days of his youth, he
had led the first flight so often; George Rex, and Waterford, and the
Berkeleys, and the rest following the rally of his hunting-horn. "You
won much in bets?"

"Very fair, thanks."

"And won't be a shilling richer for it this day next week!" retorted
the Viscount, with a rasping, grating irony; he could not help darting
savage thrusts at this man who looked at him with eyes so cruelly like
Alan Bertie's. "You play 5 pound points, and lay 500 pounds on the
odd trick, I've heard, at your whist in the Clubs--pretty prices for a
younger son!"

"Never bet on the odd tr