of
pleasure, and the sound of the violins quaver and wail out into the
morning. Then quickly, as the spangles of dew vanish off grass when
the sun rises, all melted away; and in the great rooms were none but
flunkeys presiding over the polished surfaces like flamingoes by some
lakeside at dawn.

CHAPTER III

A brick dower-house of the Fitz-Harolds, just outside the little seaside
town of Nettlefold, sheltered the tranquil days of Lord Dennis. In that
south-coast air, sanest and most healing in all England, he raged very
slowly, taking little thought of death, and much quiet pleasure in his
life. Like the tall old house with its high windows and squat chimneys,
he was marvellously self-contained. His books, for he somewhat
passionately examined old civilizations, and described their habits
from time to time with a dry and not too poignant pen in a certain
old-fashioned magazine; his microscope, for he studied infusoria; and
the fishing boat of his friend John Bogle, who had long perceived that
Lord Dennis was the biggest fish he ever caught; all these, with
occasional visitors, and little runs to London, to Monkland, and other
country houses, made up the sum of a life which, if not desperately
beneficial, was uniformly kind and harmless, and, by its notorious
simplicity, had a certain negative influence not only on his own class
but on the relations of that class with the country at large. It was
commonly said in Nettlefold, that he was a gentleman; if they were all
like him there wasn't much in all this talk against the Lords. The shop
people and lodging-house keepers felt that the interests of the country
were safer in his hands: than in the hands of people who wanted to
meddle with everything for the good of those who were only anxious to be
let alone. A man too who could so completely forget he was the son of a
Duke, that other people never forgot it, was the man for their money. It
was true that he had never had a say in public affairs; but this was
overlooked, because he could have had it if he liked, and the fact that
he did not like, only showed once more that he was a gentleman.

Just as he was the one personality of the little town against whom
practically nothing was ever, said, so was his house the one house which
defied criticism. Time had made it utterly suitable. The ivied
walls, and purplish roof lichened yellow in places, the quiet meadows
harbouring ponies and kine, reaching from it to the sea-