n,
and in love with one another, twenty-one seems ages away, don't you
know?"

"Of course."

"And once done, I don't believe--honestly, I don't believe that she
regretted it," said Sir Tancred; and his sombre eyes were shining.
"Heavens, how happy we were!--for four months. But as you'll learn, if
ever you have it, happiness is a deucedly expensive thing. I paid a
price for it--I _did_ pay a price." And he shivered. "At the end of
four months it came out, and it was all up."

"Then that was why Vane gave up coaching, sold Stanley House, and went
abroad," said Lord Crosland quickly. "We could none of us make it out."

"That was why. When it came out, my stepmother came on the scene.
She's about as remarkable a creature as you'll chance on between now
and the blue moon. She has one idea in her head, the glory of the
Beauleighs. I believe she's as mad as a hatter about it. She was one
of the Stryke & Wigrams, the bankers, a Miss Wigram; and I think, don't
you know, that rising out of that wealthy and respectable firm, she
felt bound to be the bluest-blooded possible. That's what I fancy. At
any rate she's more of a Beauleigh than any Beauleigh since the flood."

"I know," said Lord Crosland, and he nodded gravely with the
immeasurable sapience of a boy of twenty-one.

"I must say, too," Sir Tancred went on thoughtfully, "that she's been
the most important Beauleigh for generations. She brought thirty
thousand a year to the restoration of our dilapidated fortunes; and she
did restore them. You know what a County is: well, little by little
she got a grip on the County, and now she just runs it. I tell you,
the County has taken to spending every bit of the year it can in town
or abroad; when it gets within thirty miles of her, it daren't call its
life its own."

"By Jove!" said Lord Crosland earnestly. "She must be a holy terror."

"They call it force of character when she's within thirty miles of
them," said Sir Tancred drily; and then he went on with more emphasis:
"But the banker streak comes out in her; she thinks too much of money.
She doesn't understand that money's a thing you spend on things that
amuse you; she's always making shows with it--dull shows. So it was
part of her scheme for the glory of Beauleigh, that if billions
couldn't be got, I was to marry millions. You can imagine her fury
when she learned that I was married to Pamela."

"I can that," said Lord Crosland.

"She got me ba