rde threw them open: a favour hardly appreciated in the
whiter quarter, but the House admitted that it would be awfully jolly in
the summer to lie under the trees far from the "crowd." In a word--a
"privilege."

Upon the last Saturday, to John's delight, Desmond asked him to spend a
week in Eaton Square. John had paid two visits to White Ladies; he was
now about to experience something entirely new. White Ladies and Verney
Boscobel were typical of the past; they illustrated the history of the
families who had inhabited them. The great world went to White Ladies to
see the pictures and the gardens, the Gobelin tapestries, the Duchess
and her guests; but the same world dined in Eaton Square to see Charles
Desmond.

During this visit, our John first learned what miracles one individual
may accomplish. At White Ladies, he had dimly perceived, as has been
said, the duties and responsibilities imposed upon rank and wealth. In
Eaton Square he saw more plainly the duties and responsibilities imposed
upon a man of great talents. Both Charles Desmond and the Duke of Trent
were hard workers, but the labours of the duke seemed to John (and to
other wise persons) drab-coloured. Charles Desmond's work, in contrast,
presented all the colours of the spectrum. John left White Ladies,
thanking his stars that he was not a duke; he came away from Eaton
Square filled with the ambition to be Private Secretary to the great
Minister. And when Mr. Desmond said to him with his genial smile, "Well,
young John, Harry, I hope, will be my secretary, and the crutch of my
declining years. But what would you like to be?" John replied fervently,
"Oh, sir, I should like to be Harry's understudy."

"Would you?"

And then John saw the face of his kind host change. The smile faded. Mr.
Desmond had taken his answer as John meant it to be taken--seriously. He
examined John as if he were already a candidate for office. The piercing
eyes probed deep. Then he said slowly, "I should like to have you under
me, John. We shall talk of this again, my boy. My own sons----" He
paused, sighed, and then laughed, tapping John's cheek with his slender,
finely-formed fingers. But he passed on without finishing his sentence.
John knew that, of Caesar's brothers, Hugo, the eldest, was Secretary of
Legation at Teheran; Bill "devilled" for a famous barrister; Lionel wore
her Majesty's livery. Strange that none had elected to serve his own
father! Caesar explained later.