of having an hereditary aristocracy.

"Do turn back, Priscilla," he said.

"If he is the man who sprained your ankle," she said, "it's far better
for you to have it out with him now when I'm here to back you up. If you
put it off till dinner time you'll have to tackle him alone. I'm sure
not to be let in. Anyhow, we can't go back now. They've seen us."

Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius approached them. Frank plucked nervously
at his tie, unbuttoned and then re-buttoned his coat. He felt that he
had been entirely blameless during the scrimmage on the gangway of the
steamer, but Lord Torrington did not look like a man who would readily
own himself to be in the wrong.

"Your daughter, Lentaigne?" said Lord Torrington. "H'm, fifteen, you
said; looks less. Shake hands, little girl."

Priscilla put out her right hand demurely. Her eyes were fixed on the
ground. Her lips were slightly parted in a deprecating smile, suggestive
of timid modesty.

"What's your name?" said Lord Torrington.

"Priscilla Lentaigne."

Nothing could have been meeker than the tone in which she spoke.

"H'm," said Lord Torrington, "and you're Mannix's boy. Not much like
your father. At school?"

"Yes," said Frank. "At Haileybury."

"What are you doing in that bath-chair with the young lady wheeling you?
Is that the kind of manners they teach at Haileybury?"

"Please," said Priscilla, speaking very gently. "It's not his fault."

"He has sprained his ankle," said Sir Lucius. "He can't walk."

"Oh," said Lord Torrington. "Sprained ankle, is it?"

He turned and walked back to the lawn. Sir Lucius followed him.

"Rather a bear, I call him," said Priscilla. "But, of course, he may be
one of those cases of a heart of gold inside a rough skin. You can't be
sure. We did 'As You Like It' last Christmas--dramatic club, you know--and
Sylvia Courtney had a bit to say about a toad ugly and venomous which
yet wears a precious jewel in his head. I'd say he's just the opposite.
If there is a precious jewel--and there may be--it's not in his head.
Anyhow one great comfort is that he doesn't remember spraining your
ankle."

Frank, who recollected Lord Torrington with disagreeable distinctness,
did not find any great comfort in being totally forgotten. He would have
liked, though he scarcely expected, some expression of regret that the
accident had occurred.

"It'll be all the easier," said Priscilla, "to pay him back if he hasn't
any suspicion that we