u
know,--that's rather what I came down here for."

"So you did though," the elder man returned, brightening as though
making an illuminating discovery. Then, fearing he was forgetting his
part and becoming amiable too rapidly, he made a gallant effort to whip
up his somnolent indignation. "It's very distressing to me to put it so
plainly, but in my opinion it's a disgraceful business."

"Oh! I give you my word I know it," Lord Shotover replied, with most
disarming candour. His father affected, with difficulty, not to hear
the remark.

"It doesn't do for a man in your position to be owing money all over
the country. It brings the aristocracy into contempt with the
shop-keeping class. They're always on the lookout for the shortcomings
of their superiors, those people. And they do pay their debts, you
see."

"They've always got such a thundering lot of money," Lord Shotover put
in. "Don't know how they'd contrive to spend it unless they did pay
their debts."

"Oh! ah!--yes----" His father hesitated. It struck him Shotover was a
reasonable fellow, very reasonable, and he took the whole matter in a
very proper spirit. In short, it was not easy to blow up Shotover. Lord
Fallowfeild thrust his hands far down into his trouser pockets and
turned sideways in the great, leather-covered chair.

"I'm not narrow-minded or prejudiced," he began. "I always have kept on
civil terms with those sort of people and always will. Courtesy is an
obligation on the part of a gentleman and a Christian. I'd as soon be
rude to my tailor as eat with my knife. But a man must respect his own
rank or others won't respect it, especially in these nasty, radical,
leveling times. You must stand by your class. There's a vulgar proverb
about the bird that fouls its own nest, you know. Well, I never did
that. I've always stood by my own class. Helped my poor brother
Archibald--you can't remember him--weren't born at the time--to run
away with Lady Jane Bateman. Low, common fellow Bateman. I never liked
Bateman. She left Ludovic all that money, you know----"

"Wish to goodness she'd left it to me," murmured Lord Shotover.

"Eh?" inquired his father. Then he fell into a moralising vein. "Nasty,
disreputable things elopements. I never did approve of elopements.
Leave other men's wives alone, Shotover."

The younger man's mouth worked a little.

"The nuisance is sometimes they won't leave you alone."

Lord Fallowfeild gazed at him a moment, very ge