ccasion offers I will make fresh
acquaintances. I will begin another life which shall have no
connection with the old one,--except that which will be continued by
the thread of my own memory. No one shall be near me who may even
think of her name when my own ways and manners are called in
question." He went on to explain that he would set himself to work at
once. The ship must be built, and the crew collected, and the stores
prepared. He thought that in this way he might find employment for
himself till the spring. In the spring, if all was ready, he would
start. Till that time came he would live at Hendon Hall,--still
alone. He so far relented, however, as to say that if his sister was
married before he began his wanderings he would be present at her
marriage.

Early in the course of the evening he had explained to Roden that his
father and he had conjointly arranged to give Lady Frances L40,000 on
her wedding. "Can that be necessary?" asked Roden.

"You must live; and as you have gone into a nest with the drones, you
must live in some sort as the drones do."

"I hope I shall never be a drone."

"You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. You'll be expected to
wear gloves and drink fine wine,--or, at any rate, to give it to your
friends. Your wife will have to ride in a coach. If she don't people
will point at her, and think she's a pauper, because she has a handle
to her name. They talk of the upper ten thousand. It is as hard to
get out from among them as it is to get in among them. Though you
have been wonderfully stout about the Italian title, you'll find that
it will stick to you." Then it was explained that the money, which
was to be given, would in no wise interfere with the "darlings."
Whatever was to be added to the fortune which would naturally have
belonged to Lady Frances, would come not from her father but from her
brother.

When Roden arrived at Castle Hautboy Lord Persiflage was there,
though he remained but for a day. He was due to be with the Queen for
a month,--a duty which was evidently much to his taste, though he
affected to frown over it as a hardship. "I am sorry, Roden," he
said, "that I should be obliged to leave you and everybody else;--but
a Government hack, you know, has to be a Government hack." This was
rather strong from a Secretary of State to a Clerk in the Post
Office; but Roden had to let it pass lest he should give an opening
to some remark on his own repudiated rank. "I shall