t nothing of the stable."

"What do you dare to say?" said the Dean, jumping from his seat.

The Marquis sat leaning back in his arm-chair, perfectly motionless.
There was a smile,--almost a pleasant smile on his face. But there was
a very devil in his eye, and the Dean, who stood some six feet removed
from him, saw the devil plainly. "I live a solitary life here, Mr.
Dean," said the Marquis, "but even I have heard of her."

"What have you heard?"

"All London have heard of her,--this future Marchioness, whose ambition
is to drive my son from his title and estates. A sacred duty, Mr. Dean,
to put a coronet on the head of that young ----!" The word which we
have not dared to print was distinctly spoken,--more distinctly, more
loudly, more incisively, than any word which had yet fallen from the
man's lips. It was evident that the lord had prepared the word, and had
sent for the father that the father might hear the word applied to his
own daughter,--unless indeed he should first acknowledge himself to
have lost his case. So far the interview had been carried out very much
in accordance with the preparations as arranged by the Marquis; but, as
to what followed, the Marquis had hardly made his calculations
correctly.

A clergyman's coat used to save him from fighting in fighting days; and
even in these days, in which broils and personal encounters are held to
be generally disreputable, it saves the wearer from certain remote
dangers to which other men are liable. And the reverse of this is also
true. It would probably be hard to extract a first blow from the whole
bench of bishops. And deans as a rule are more sedentary, more
quiescent, more given to sufferance even than bishops. The normal Dean
is a goodly, sleek, bookish man, who would hardly strike a blow under
any provocation. The Marquis, perhaps, had been aware of this. He had,
perhaps, fancied that he was as good a man as the Dean who was at least
ten years his senior. He had not at any rate anticipated such speedy
violence as followed the utterance of the abominable word.

The Dean, as I have said, had been standing about six feet from the
easy chair in which the Marquis was lolling when the word was spoken.
He had already taken his hat in his hand and had thought of some means
of showing his indignation as he left the room. Now his first impulse
was to rid himself of his hat, which he did by pitching it along the
floor. And then in an instant he was at the lo