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CHAPTER II
A DIFFICULT OPENING

The proudest moment of Jones's life was probably when he assisted me to alight from the carriage I had ordered at the station. I wore a light duster, a straw hat, and goloshes (among other things), together with the air of having come over in the same steamboat as the Conqueror. I may as well mention here that I am tall, almost as tall as the Woolwich Infant, who frequently stands six foot two on my pet corn (Towers, by the way, is a short squat man, whose delusion that he is handsome can be read plainly upon his face). My features, like my habits, are regular. By complexion I belong to the fair sex; but there is a masculine vigour about my physique and my language which redeems me from effeminateness. I do not mention my tawny moustache, because that is not an exclusively male trait in these days of women's rights.

"Good morning, my lord!" said Jones, his obeisance so low and his voice so loud that I had to give the driver half-a-crown.

I nodded almost imperceptibly, knowing that the surest way to impress Jones with my breeding was to display no trace of it. I strolled languidly into the hall, deferentially followed by the Infant and Merton Towers, leaving Jones distracted between the desire to handle my luggage and to show me my room.

"Hexcuse me, my lord," said Jones, fluttered. "Jane, run for the master."

"Excuse me, my lord," said the Infant; "I'll run up and wash for lunch. See you in a moment. Come along, Merton. It's so beastly high-up. When are you going to get a lift, Jones?"

"In a moment, sir; in a moment!" replied Jones automatically.

He seemed half-dazed.

The quiet, gentlemanly young proprietor, who appeared to have been disturbed in his studies, for he held a volume of Dickens in his hand, conducted me to a gorgeously furnished bedroom on the first floor facing the sea.

"It's the best we can do for your lordship," he said apologetically; "but with the Review so near – "

I waved my hand impatiently, wishing he could have done worse for me. In town I had been too busy to realise the situation in detail; but now it began to dawn upon me that it was going to be an expensive joke. Besides, I was separated from my friends, who were corridors away and flights higher, and convivial meetings at midnight would mean disagreeable stockinged wanderings for somebody – a mere shadow of a trifle, no doubt, but little things like that worry more than they look. I was afraid to ask the price of this swell bedroom, and I began to comprehend the meaning of noblesse oblige.

"The sitting-room adjoins," said the hotel-keeper, suddenly opening a door and ushering me into a magnificent chamber, with a lofty ceiling and a dado. The furniture was plush-covered and suggestive of footmen. "I presume you will not be taking your meals in public?"

"H'm! H'm!" I muttered, tugging at my moustache. Then, struck by a bright idea, I said: "What do Mr. Woolwich and Mr. Towers do?"

"They join the table d'hôte, your lordship," said the proprietor. "They didn't require a sitting-room they said, as they should be almost entirely in the open air."

"Oh! well, I could hardly leave my friends," I said reflectively; "I suppose I shall have to join them at the table d'hôte."

"I daresay they would like to have your lordship with them," said the proprietor, with a faint, flattering smile.

I smiled internally at my cunning in getting out of the sitting-room.

"It's an awful bore," I yawned; "but I'm afraid they'd be annoyed if I ate up here alone, so – "

"You'll invite them up here for all meals? Yes, my lord," said Jones at my elbow.

He had sidled up with his cat-like crawl. Through the open door of communication I saw he had deposited my boxes in the gorgeous bedroom. There was a moment of tense silence, in which I struggled desperately for a response. The brazen shudder of a gong vibrated through the house.

"Is that lunch?" I asked in relief, making a step towards the door.

"Yes, my lord," said Jones; "but not your lordship's lunch. It will be laid here immediately, my lord. I will go at once and convey your invitation to your lordship's friends."

He hastened from the room, leaving me dumbfounded. I did not enjoy Jones as much as I had anticipated. In a moment a pretty parlour-maid arrived to lay the cloth. I became conscious that I was hungry and thirsty and travel-stained, and I determined to let things slide till after lunch, when I could easily set them right. The sunshine was flooding the room, and the sea was a dance of diamonds. The sight of the prandial preparations softened me. I retired to my beautiful bedroom and plunged my face into a basin of water.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" I spluttered.

"Your hot water, my lord!" It was Jones.

"I've got into enough already," I thought. "Don't want it," I growled peremptorily; "I always wash in cold."

I would have my way in small things, I resolved, if I could not have it in great.

"Certainly, your lordship; this is only for shaving."

My cheeks grew hot beneath the fingers washing them. I remembered that I had overslept myself that morning, and neglected shaving lest I should miss my train. There were but a few microscopic hairs, yet I felt at once I had not the face to meet Jones at lunch.

"Thank you!" I said savagely.

When I had wiped my eyes I found he was still in the room, bent in meek adoration.

"What in the devil do you want now?" I thundered.

His eyes lit up with rapture. It was as though I had made oath I was a nobleman and removed his last doubt.

"Pommery Green-oh or Hideseek, my lord?"

I cursed silently. I am of an easy-going disposition, and in my most penurious student days, had to spend twenty-five per cent more on my modest lunch whenever the waiter said: "Stout or bitter, sir?" But the present alternative was far more terrible. I was on the point of saying I was a teetotaller, when I remembered that would shut off my nocturnal whisky-and-water, and condemn me to goody-goody beverages at meals. I remembered, too, that Jones intended the champagne as much for my friends as myself, and that lords are proverbially disassociated from temperance. Oh! it was horrible that this oleaginous snob should rob a poor man of his beer! Perhaps I could escape with claret. In my agitation I commenced lathering my chin and returned no answer at all. The voice of Jones came at last, charged with deeper respect, but inevitable as the knell of doom.

"Did you say Pommery Green-oh! my lord?"

"No!" I yelled defiantly.

"Thank you, my lord. Lord Porchester was very partial to our Hideseek – when he was here. We have an excellent year."

"I wish you had twelve months," I thought furiously. Then when the door closed upon him, I ground my razor savagely and muttered: "All right! I'll take it out of you in Damtidam."

I heard the bustle of my friends arriving to lunch, and I shaved myself hastily. Then slipping on my coat and dabbing a bit of sticking-plaster on my chin, I threw open the door violently; for I was not going to let those two fellows off an exhibition of slang. They should have thought out the plot more fully; have hired me a moderate bedroom in advance, and not have let me in for the luxuries of Lucullus. It was a cowardly desertion, their leaving me at the critical moment, and they should learn what I thought of it.

"You ruffians!" I began; but the words died on my lips. Jones was waiting at table.

It ought to have been a delicious lunch: broiled chickens and apple-tart; the cool breeze coming through the open window, the sea and the champagne sparkling. But I, who was hungriest, enjoyed it least; Jones, who ate nothing, enjoyed it most. The Infant and Merton Towers simply overflowed with high spirits, keeping up a running fire of aristocratic allusions, which galled me beyond endurance.

"By the way, how is the dowager-duchess?" wound up the Infant.

"D – the dowager-duchess!" I roared, losing the remains of my temper.

Jones grew radiant, and the Infant winked irritating approval of my natural touches. Such contempt for duchesses could only be bred of familiarity. At last I could contain myself no longer; I must either explode or have a fit. I sent Jones for cigarettes.

Directly the door closed those two men turned upon me.

"I say, old fellow," exclaimed Towers reproachfully, "isn't this just going it a little too far?"

"What in creation made you take these howling apartments?" asked the Infant. "Review time, too! They've been saving up these rooms, foreseeing there would be some tip-top swells crowded out of the fashionable hotels. Why, there's a cosy little crib next to ours I made sure you'd have."

"Well, I call this cool!" I gasped.

"So it is," said the Infant; "I admit that. It's the coolest room in the house. It'll be real jolly up here; and if you can stand the racket I'm sure I'm not the chap to grumble."

"You must have been doing beastly well, old man," Towers put in enviously; "to feed us like critics on chicken and champagne. I suppose they'll be opening new cemeteries down your way presently."

"Look here, my fine fellows," I said ferociously, "don't you forget that there's plenty of room still in Ryde Churchyard."

"Hallo, Ted!" cried the Infant, looking up with ingenuous surprise, "I thought you came down here on a holiday?"

"Stash that!" I said. "It's you who've got me into this hole, and you know it."

"Hole!" cried Towers, looking round the room in amaze. "He calls this a hole! Hang it all, my boy, are you a millionaire? I call this good enough for a lord."

"Yes; but as I'm neither," I said grimly, "I should like you to understand that I'm not going to pay for this spread."

"What!" gasped the Infant. "Invite a man to lunch, and expect him to square the bill?"

"I never invited you!" I said indignantly.

"Who then?" said Towers sternly.

"Jones!" I answered.

"Yes, my lord! Sorry to have kept your lordship waiting; but I think you will find these cigarettes to your liking. I haven't been at this box since Lord Porchester was here, and it got mislaid."

"Take them away!" I roared. "They're Egyptians!"

"Yes, my lord!" said Jones, in delight.

He glided proudly from the room.

"'Jones invited us?'" pursued the Infant. "What rot! As if Jones would dare do anything you hadn't told him. We are his slaves. But you? Why, he hangs on your words!"

"D – him! I should like to see him hanging on something higher!" I cried.

"Yes, your language is low," admitted the Infant. "But, seriously, what's all the row about? I thought this champagne lunch was a bit of realism, just to start off with."

I explained briefly how Jones had coiled himself around me, even as they had described. The dado echoed their ribald laughter.

"Oh, well," said the Infant, "it's only right you should give a lunch the day you come into a peerage. It's really too much to expect us to pay scot, when there was a beautiful lunch of cold beef and pickles waiting for us in the dining-room, and included in our terms per week. We aren't going to pay for two lunches."

"I don't mind the lunch," I said, smiling, my sense of humour returning now that I had poured forth my grievance. "I'd gladly give you chaps a lunch any day, and I'm pleased you enjoyed it so much. But, for the rest, I'm going to run this joke by syndicate, or not at all. I only came down with a tenner."

"A pound a day!" said Towers, "that ought to be enough."

"Why, there's a pound gone bang over this lunch already!" I retorted.

"And then there's the apartments," put in the Infant roguishly. "I wonder what they'll tot up to?"

"Jones alone knows," I groaned.

He came in – a veritable devil – while his name was on my lips, with a new box of cigarettes.

"Clear away!" I said briefly.

He cleared away, and we breathed freely. We leaned back in the plush-covered easy-chairs, sending rings of fragrant smoke towards the blue horizon, and I felt more able to face the situation calmly.

"I daresay we can lend you five quid between us," said Towers.

"What's the good of a loan to an honest man?" I asked. "Can't we work the joke without such a lot of capital? The first thing is to get out of these rooms, and into that cosy little crib near you. I can say I yearn for your society."

"But have you the courage to look Jones in the face and tell him that?" queried Towers dubiously.

I hesitated. I felt instinctively that Jones would be dreadfully shocked if I changed my palatial apartments for a cheap bedroom; that it would be better if some one else broke the news.

"Oh, the Infant'll explain," I said lightly.

"Nothing of the sort," said the Infant; "it won't wash now. Besides, they'd make you shell out in any case. They'd pretend they turned lots of applicants away this morning, because the rooms were let. No, keep the bedroom, and we'll go shares in this sitting-room. It's jollier to have a proper private room."

"Good!" I said. "Then it only remains to escape from these special meals and the champagne."

"You leave that to me," said the Infant. "I'll tell Jones that you hunger for our company at meals, but that we can't consent to come up here, because you, with that reckless prodigality which is wearing the dowager-duchess to a shadow, insist on paying for everything consumed on your premises, so that you must e'en come to the general table. Jones will be glad enough to trot you round."

"And I'll tell him," added Towers, "that, with that determined dipsomania which is making the money-lenders daily friendlier to your little brother, you swill champagne till you fly at waiters' throats like a mad dog, and that it is our sacred duty to diet you on table-beer or Tintara."

"Wouldn't it be simpler to tell him the truth?" I asked feebly.

"What!" gasped the Infant, "chuck up the sponge? Don't spoil the loveliest holiday I ever had, old man. Just think how you will go up in his estimation, when we tell him you are a spendthrift and a drunkard! For pity's sake, don't throw a gloom over Jones's life."

"Very well," I said, relenting. "Only the exes must be cut down. The motto must be, 'Extravaganza without extravagance, or farces economically conducted.'"

"Right you are!" they said; and then we smoked on in halcyon voluptuousness, now and then passing the matches or a droll remark about Jones. In the middle of one of the latter there was a knock at the door, and Jones entered.

"The carriage will be round in five minutes, my lord," he announced.

"The carriage!" I faltered, growing pale.

"Yes, my lord. I took the liberty of thinking your lordship wouldn't waste such a fine afternoon indoors."

"No; I'm going out at once," I said resolutely. "But I shan't drive."

"Very well, my lord; I will countermand the carriage, and order a horse. I presume your lordship would like a spirited one? Jayes, up the street, has a beautiful bay steed."

"Thank you; I don't care for riding – er – other people's horses."

"No; of course not, my lord. I'll see that the May blossom is reserved for your lordship's use this afternoon. Your lordship will have time for a glorious sail before dinner."

He hastened from the room.

"You'd better have the carriage," said the Infant drily; "it's cheaper than the yacht. You'll have to have it once, and you may as well get it over. After one trial, you can say it's too springless and the cushions are too crustaceous for your delicate anatomy."

"I'll see him at Jericho first!" I cried, and wrenched at the bell-pull with angry determination.

"Yes, my lord!"

He stood bent and insinuative before me.

"I won't have the yacht."

"Very well, my lord; then I won't countermand the carriage."

He turned to go.

"Jones!" I shrieked.

He looked back at me. His eyes, full of a trusting reverence, met mine. My resolution began oozing out at every pore.

"Is – is – are you going with the carriage?" I stammered, for want of something to say.

"No, my lord," he answered wistfully.

That settled it. I let him depart without another word.

It was certainly a pleasant drive through the delightful scenery of the Isle, and I determined, since I had to pay the piper, to enjoy the dance. The Infant and Towers were hilarious to the point of vulgarity: I let myself go at the will of Jones. When we got back, we realised with a start that it was half-past six. The dressing-gong was sounding. Jones met me in the passage.

"Dinner at seven, my lord, in your room."

I made frantic motions to the Infant.

"Tell him!" I breathed.

"It's too late now," he whispered back. "To-morrow!"

I telegraphed desperately to Towers. He shook his thick head helplessly.

"Have you invited my friends to dinner?" I asked Jones bitingly.

"No, my lord," he said simply. "I thought your lordship 'ad seen enough of them to-day."

There was a suggestion of reproach in the apology. Jones was more careful of my dignity than I was.

When I got to my room, I found, to my horror, my dress-clothes laid out on the bed – I had brought them on the off-chance of going to a local dance. Jones had opened my portmanteau. For a moment a cold chill traversed my spine, as I thought he must have seen the monogram on my linen, and discovered the imposture. Then I remembered with joy that it was an "E," which is the more formal initial of Ted, and would do for Everett. In my relief, I felt I must submit to the nuisance of dressing – in honour of Jones. While changing my trousers, a sudden curiosity took me. I peeped through the keyhole of my sitting-room, and saw Jones just arriving with another bottle of Heidsieck. I groaned. I knew I should have to drink it, to keep up the fiction Towers was going to palm off on Jones to-morrow. I felt like bolting on the spot, but I was in my Jaegers. Presently Jones sidled mysteriously towards my door and knelt down before it. It flashed upon me he wanted the keyhole I was occupying. I jumped up in alarm, and dressed with the decorum of a god with a worshipper's eye on him.

I swallowed what Jones gave me, fuming. With the roast, a blessed thought came to soothe me. Thenceforward I chuckled continuously. I refused the parfait aux frais and the savoury in my eagerness for the end of the meal. Revenge was sufficient sweets.

"Haw, hum!" I murmured, caressing my moustache. "Bring me a Damtidam."

I knew his little phial must be exhausted long since. I intended to give him a bottle.

"Did your lordship say Damtidam?"

"Damtidam!" I roared, while my heart beat voluptuous music. "You don't mean to say you don't keep it?"

"Oh no, my lord! We laid in a big stock of it; but Lord Porchester was that fond of it (used to drink it like your lordship does champagne), I doubt if I could lay my hand on a bottle."

"What an awful bo-ah!" I yawned. "I suppose I'll have to get a bottle of my own out of that little black box under my bed. I couldn't possibly go without it after dinner. Hang it all, the key is in my other trousers!"

"Oh, don't trouble, my lord," said Jones anxiously. "I'll run and see if I can find any."

I waited, gloating.

Jones returned gleefully.

"I've found plenty, my lord," he said, setting down a brimming liqueur-glass.

He lingered about, clearing the table. His eye was upon me. I drank the Damtidam. Then Jones departed, and I went about kicking the furniture, and striding about in my desolate grandeur, like Napoleon at St. Helena.

Presently the Infant and Towers came rushing in, choking with laughter.

"Your arrival has fired afresh all Jones's aristocratic ambitions," gurgled Towers. "Ha! ha! ha!"

"Ho! ho! ho!" panted the Infant. "He's coaxed us out of all our remaining Damtidam."

I grinned a sickly response.

"Great Scot!" the Infant bellowed. "What's this howling wilderness of shirt-front?"

"It's cooler," I explained.

CHAPTER III
THE QUEEN COMES INTO PLAY

I had to breakfast in my room, but by lunch the next day my friends had found an opportunity to explain me to Jones. They had on several occasions strongly exhorted Jones to secrecy as to my rank, so that the eyes of the whole table were on me when I entered. I ate with the ease of one conscious of giving involuntary lessons in etiquette to a furtive-glancing bourgeoisie. The Infant gave me Tintara, to break me gradually of champagne and reduce me to malt. After lunch Towers remonstrated with Jones on having obviously given me away.

"Sir," protested Jones, in righteous indignation, "I promised to tell no one in the hotel, and I have kept my word!"

"Well, how do they know then?" enquired Towers.

"I shouldn't be surprised if they read it in the Visitors' List," Jones answered.

Being now half-emancipated, I fell into the usual routine of a seaside holiday. I swam, I rowed, I walked, I lounged, whenever Jones would let me. One wet morning we even congratulated ourselves on our luxurious sitting-room, as we sat and smoked before the rain-whipt sea, till, unexpected, Jones brought up lunch for three. That evening, as we were entering the dining-room, Jones observed humbly to the Infant and Towers:

"Excuse me, gentlemen; I 'ave 'ad to separate you from his lordship. We've 'ad such a influx of visitors for the Review, I've been 'ard put to it to squeeze them all in."

Those wretched cowards marched feebly to a new extremity of the table, while I walked to my usual seat near the window, with anger flaming duskily on my brow. This time I was determined. I would stick to table-beer all the same.

But before I dropped into my chair every trace of anger vanished. My heart throbbed violently, my dazzled eyes surveyed my serviette. At my side was one of the most charming girls I had ever met. When the Heidsieck came, I raised my glass as in a dream, and silently drank to the glorious creature nearest my heart – on the left hand.

We medicos are not easily upset by woman's beauty; we know too well what it is made of. But there was something so exquisite about this girl's face as to make a hardened materialist hesitate to resolve her into a physiological formula. It was not long before I offered to pass her the pepper. She declined with thanks and brevity. Her accent grated unexpectedly on my ear: I was puzzled to know why. I spoke of the rain that still tapped at the window, as if anxious to come in.

"It was raining when I left Paris," she said; "but up till then I had a lovely time."

Now I saw what was the matter. She suffered from twang and was American. I have always had a prejudice against Americans – chiefly, I believe, because they always seem to be having "a lovely time." It was with a sense of partial disenchantment that I continued the conversation:

"So you have been in Paris?" I said, thinking of the old joke about good Americans going there when they die. "I must admit you look as if you had come from Heaven!"

"So wretched as all that!" she retorted, laughing merrily. There was no twang in the laugh; it was a ripple of music.

"I don't mean an exile from Heaven," I answered: "an excursionist, with a return-ticket."

"Oh! but I'm not going back," she said, shaking her lovely head.

"Not even when you die?" I asked, smiling.

"I guess I shall need a warmer climate then!" she flashed back audaciously.

"You're too good for that," I answered, without hesitation.

I caught a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, as she answered:

"Gracious! you're very spry at giving strange folks certificates."

"It's my business to give certificates," I answered, smiling.

"Marriage certificates, my lord?" she asked roguishly.

I was about to answer "Doctors' certificates," but her last two syllables froze the words on my lips.

"You – you – know me?" I stammered.

"Yes, your lordship," with a mock bow.

"Why – how – ?" I faltered. "You've only just come."

"Jones," she answered.

"Jones!" I repeated, vexed.

"Yes, my lord."

He glided up and re-filled my glass.

"Jones is a nuisance," I said, when he was out of earshot again.

"Jones is a Britisher!" she said enigmatically. "Surely you don't mind people knowing who you are?"

"I'm afraid I do," I replied uneasily.

"I guess your reputation must be real shady," she said, with her American candour. "You English lords, we have just about sized you up in the States."

"I – I – " I stammered.

"No! don't tell me," she interrupted quickly; "I'd rather not know. My aunt here, that lady on my left, – she's a widow and half a Britisher, and respectable, don't you know, – will want me to cut you."

"And you don't want to?" I exclaimed eagerly.

"Well, one must talk to somebody," she said, arching her eyebrows. "It's all very well for my aunt. She's left her children at home. That's happiness enough for her. But that don't make things equally lively for me."

"Your language is frank," I said laughingly.

"Yes, that's one of the languages you've forgotten how to speak in this old country."

Again that musical ripple of mirth. Her fascination was fast enswathing me like another Jones, only a thousandfold more sweetly. Already I found her twang delightful, lending the last touch of charm to her original utterances. I looked up suddenly, and saw the Infant and Towers glaring enviously at me from the other end of the table. Then I was quite happy. True, they had the sprightly O'Rafferty between them, but he did not seem to console them – rather to chaff them.

"Ho! ho!" I roared, when we reached our sitting-room that night. "There's virtue in the peerage after all."

"Shut up!" the Infant snarled. "If you think you're going to annex that ripping creature, I warn you that bloated aristocracy will have to settle up for its marble halls. We're running this thing by syndicate, remember."

"Yes, but this isn't part of the profits," I urged defiantly.

"Oh, isn't it?" put in Towers. "Why do you suppose Jones sat her next to you, if not as a prerogative of nobility?"

"Well, but if I can get her to go out with me alone, that's a private transaction."

"No go, Teddy," said the Infant. "We don't allow you to play for your own hand."

"Or hers," added Towers. "While you were spooning, Jones was telling us all about her. Her name's Harper – Ethelberta Harper, and her old man is a Railway King, or something."

"She's a queen – I don't care of what!" I said fervently. "We got very chummy, and I'm going to take her for a row to-morrow morning. It's not my fault if she doesn't pal on to you."

"Stow that cant!" cried the Infant. "Either you surrender her to the syndicate or pay your own exes. Choose!"

"Well, I'll compromise!" I said desperately.

"No, you don't! It's to prevent your compromising her we want to stand in. We'll all go for that row."

"No, listen to my suggestion. I'll invite her to lunch after the row, and I'll invite you fellows to meet her."

"But how do you know she'll come?" said Towers.

"She will if I ask her aunt too."

"Scoundrel, you've asked them both already!" cried the Infant. "Where's the compromise?"

"I hadn't asked you already," I reminded him.

"No, but now you propose to use the capital of the syndicate!" he rejoined sharply.

"Nothing of the kind," I retorted rashly.

So it was settled. I had four guests to lunch, and Jones expanded visibly. The Infant and Towers kept Miss Harper pretty well to themselves, while I was left to entertain Mrs. Windpeg, a comely but tedious lady, who gave me details of her life in England since she left New York, a newly married wife, twenty years before. She seemed greatly interested in these details. Ethelberta paid no attention to her aunt, but a great deal to my friends. Several times I found myself gnawing my lip instead of my wing. But I had my revenge at the table d'hôte. Jones kept my friends remorselessly at bay, and religiously guarded my proximity to the lovely American. Strange mental revolution! The idea of tipping Jones actually commenced to germinate in my mind.

It was on Review-day that I realised I was hopelessly in love. Of course my quartet of friends was at the windows of my sitting-room. Jones also selected this room to see the Review from, and I fancy he regaled my visitors with delicate refreshments throughout the day, and I remember being vaguely glad that he made amends for the general neglect of Mrs. Windpeg by offering her the choicest titbits; but I have no clear recollection of anything but Ethelberta. Her face was my Review, though there was no powder on it. The play of light on her cheeks and hair was all the manœuvres I cared for – the pearls of her mouth were my ranged rows of ships; and when everybody else was peering hopelessly into the thick smoke, my eyes were feasting on the sunshine of her face. I did not hear the cannon, nor the long, endless clamour of the packed streets, only the soft words she spoke from time to time.

"To-morrow morning I must go away," I murmured to her at dinner. I fancied she grew paler, but I could not be sure, for Jones at that moment changed my plate.

"I am sorry," she said simply. "Must you go?"

"Yes," I answered sadly. "My beautiful holiday is over. To-morrow, to work."

"I thought, for you lords, life was one long holiday," she said, surprised.

I was glad of the reminder. My love was hopeless. A struggling doctor could not ask for the hand of an heiress. Even if he could, it would be a poor recommendation to start with a confession of imposture. To ask, without confessing, were to become a scoundrel and a fortune-hunter of the lowest type. No; better to pass from her ken, leaving her memory of me untainted by suspicion – leaving my memory of her an idyllic, unfinished dream. And yet I could not help reflecting, with agony, that if I had not begun under false colours, if I had come to her only as what I was, I might have dared to ask for her love – yea, and perhaps have won it. Oh, how weak I had been not to tell her from the first! As if she would not have appreciated the joke! As if she would not have enrolled herself joyously in the campaign against Jones!

"Ah! my life will be anything but a long holiday, I fear," I sighed.

"Say, you're not an hereditary legislator?" she asked.

"Legislation is not the hereditary disease I complain of," I said evasively.

"What then?"

"Love!" I replied desperately.

She laughed gaily.

"I guess that's an original view of love."

"Why? My parents suffered from it: at least, I hope they did."