y
accurately computing the weight, down to ounces, of the pig or turkey
raffled for at their favourite public-house. So the trained student of
his fellows can also diagnose his subjects and anticipate their
actions."

The Marquis smiled.

"You analytical novelists would destroy for us the whole romance of
life," he declared. "I will not listen to you any longer. I fear
ignorance less than disillusion!"

He passed on, and the little group at once dispersed. The novelist was
left alone. He went off in a huff. Lord Chelsford plucked me by the
arm.

"Let us sit down, Ducaine," he said. "What rubbish these men of letters
talk!"

I glanced towards the ballroom, but my companion shook his head.

"Angela is dancing with the Portuguese Ambassador," he said, "and he
will never give up his ten minutes afterwards. You must pay the penalty
of having--married the most beautiful woman in London, Guy, and sit out
with the old fogies. What rubbish that fellow did talk!"

"You are thinking--" I murmured.

"Of the Duke! Yes! There was a man who to all appearance was a typical
English gentleman, proud, sensitive of his honour, in every action which
came before the world a right-dealing and a right-doing man. To do what
seemed right to him from one point of view he stripped himself of lands
and fortune, and when that was not enough he stooped to unutterable
baseness. He was willing to betray his country to justify his own sense
of personal honour."

"In justice to him," I said, "one must remember that he never for a
moment believed in the possibility of a French invasion."

Lord Cheisford shook his head.

"It is too nice a point," he declared. "We may not reckon it in his
favour. I wonder how our friends on the other side felt when they knew
that they had paid fifty thousand pounds for false information? We
ought to make you a peer, Ducaine. The Trogoldy money would stand it."

"For Heaven's sake, don't!" I cried. "What have I done that you should
want to banish me into the pastures?"

"You talk too much," my companion murmured. "In the Lords it wouldn't
matter, but in the Commons you are a nuisance. I suppose you want to be
taken into the Cabinet."

"Quite true!" I admitted. "You want young men there, and I am ready any
time."

"A man with a wife like yours," Lord Chelsford remarked, thoughtfully,
"is bound to go anywhere he wants. Then he sits down and takes all the
credit to himself."

Angela passed on the arm of t