for the Glastonbury
shoot.

When he had gone Francis Markrute's first act was to sit down and write
a four-figure check for the Cripple Children's Hospital: he believed in
thankofferings. Then he rubbed his hands softly together as he went up
to his bed.

CHAPTER V

Then Lord Tancred left the house in Park Lane he did not go on to the
supper party at the Savoy he had promised to attend. That sort of
affair had bored him, now for several years. Instead, he drove straight
back to his rooms in St. James' Street, and, getting comfortably into
his pet chair, he steadily set himself to think. He had acted upon a
mad impulse; he knew that and did not argue with himself about it, or
regret it. Some force stronger than anything he had hitherto known had
compelled him to come to the decision. And what would his future life
be like with this strange woman? That could not be exactly guessed.
That it would contain scenes of the greatest excitement he did not
doubt. She would in all cases look the part. His mother herself--the
Lady Tancred, daughter of the late and sister of the present Duke of
Glastonbury--could not move with more dignity: a thought which reminded
him that he had better write to his parent and inform her of his
intended step. He thought of all the women he had loved--or imagined he
had loved--since he left Eton. The two affairs which had convulsed him
during his second year at Oxford were perhaps the most serious; the
Laura Highford, his last episode, was fortunately over and had always
been rather tiresome. In any case none of those ladies of the world--or
other world--had any reasons to reproach him, and he was free and
happy. And if he wished to put down a large stake on the card of
marriage he was answerable to no one.

During the last eight hundred years, ever since Amaury Guiscard of that
house of Hauteville whose daring deeds gave sovereigns to half Europe,
had come over with his Duke William, and had been rewarded by the gift
of the Wrayth lands--seized from the Saxons--his descendants had
periodically done madly adventurous things. Perhaps the quality was
coming out in him!

Then he thought of his lady, personally, and not of the
extraordinariness of his action. She was exasperatingly attractive. How
delicious it would be when he had persuaded her to talk to him, taught
her to love him, because she certainly must love him--some day! It was
rather cold-blooded of her to be willing to marry him,