easily, and had of late looked about for an excuse for
accepting her lover. When the man was discovered to be a Duke, though
it was only an Italian Duke, of course he accepted him. Now his
wife told him daily that Roden was not a Duke, because he would not
accept his Dukedom,--and ought therefore again to be rejected. Lord
Persiflage had declared that nothing could be done for him, and
therefore he ought to be rejected. But the Marquis clung to his
daughter. As the man was absolutely a Duke, according to the laws of
all the Heralds, and all the Courts, and all the tables of precedency
and usages of peerage in Christendom, he could not de-grade himself
even by any motion of his own. He was the eldest and the legitimate
son of the last Duca di Crinola,--so the Marquis said,--and as such
was a fitting aspirant for the hand of the daughter of an English
peer. "But he hasn't got a shilling," said Lady Kingsbury weeping.
The Marquis felt that it was within his own power to produce some
remedy for this evil, but he did not care to say as much to his wife,
who was tender on that point in regard to the interest of her three
darlings. Roden continued his visits to Park Lane very frequently
all through the summer, and had already arranged for an autumn visit
to Castle Hautboy,--in spite of that angry word spoken by Lord
Persiflage. Everybody knew he was to marry Lady Frances. But when the
season was over, and all the world had flitted from London, nothing
was settled.

Lady Kingsbury was of course very unhappy during all this time; but
there was a source of misery deeper, more pressing, more crushing
than even the Post Office clerk. Mr. Greenwood, the late chaplain,
had, during his last interview with the Marquis, expressed some noble
sentiments. He would betray nothing that had been said to him in
confidence. He would do nothing that could annoy the Marchioness,
because the Marchioness was a lady, and as such, entitled to all
courtesy from him as a gentleman. There were grounds no doubt on
which he could found a claim, but he would not insist on them, as
his doing so would be distasteful to her ladyship. He felt that he
was being ill-treated, almost robbed; but he would put up with that
rather than say a word which would come against his own conscience
as a gentleman. With these high assurances he took his leave of the
Marquis as though he intended to put up with the beggarly stipend
of L200 a year which the Marquis had promise