The Cousin from Canada

by Robert Barr

THE COUSIN FROM CANADA.

By ROBERT BARR.

THE Earl of Dunfor sat in a deep, leathern chair in that huge apartment which was comfortable rather than luxurious—the smoking-room of the Cadenabian Club. He had slipped forward until his neck rested on the back of the armchair; his hat was negligently tipped over his nose, so that an observer could not be sure whether he was asleep or awake; his legs were stretched out to their fullest extent, and looked unnecessarily long; his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets—so deep that they seemed to be reaching for unattainable knees. The whole tense yet slouch attitude of his youthful lordship might have appeared to an onlooker the result of being awake during the small hours of the night before, while another might have said that Dunfor had been looking upon the wine when it was red, or, more probably, when it sparkled in the goblet.

As a matter of fact, this negligent posture indicated a deep and withering despair over a situation from which there was but one way out, so far as Cassalis, seventeenth Earl of Dunfor, could discover. He must marry the girl, and it was useless to flinch from the inevitable. Even Cassalis's cold-hearted solicitor admitted the drastic nature of the action, he, having seen the woman, describing her as a middle-aged female who, even in her youth, could not have been beautiful, and on whose appearance the hardening influence of pioneer life had left an extremely unprepossessing result.

Cassalis had suggested that some compromise might be arrived at.

"Tell her," cried the young man, suddenly becoming as bold as a lion—"tell her that we'll fight!"

The grave legal gentleman slowly shook his head.

"We haven't a leg to stand upon," he said.

"Of course," agreed the young man, "we haven't a leg to stand upon, and she has two, therefore she can beat us if it comes to a knock-out. Still, I don't propose that we shall let it come to that. Can't we bluff her? Here is an unsophisticated creature from the wilds of Canada—she cannot be up to snuff, don't you know—and if we seemed fierce and uncompromising, just yearning for a struggle, don't you think she might propose a settlement? If she made me an allowance of only five thousand a year, I could rub along on that."

Again the lawyer shook his head.

"Your suggestion of a simple-minded peasant from the wilds of Canada is quite beside the mark, my lord. Miss Jane Braddock strikes me as a woman of the shrewdest common-sense."

Cassalis groaned.

"She knows exactly what her rights are under the will of the late Earl, and I am quite sure that nothing is to be expected from her generosity. When I ventured to point out to her the grievous position in which you found yourself, she said rather curtly that it served you right. She added that if you had accepted your uncle's advice of ten years ago—going to Canada, as he counselled, and endeavouring to carve out a career for yourself—you would not now be reduced to the humiliating quest, as she put it, of searching for an heiress."

"Oh, she knows I have been on the outlook, then?"

"Yes. I rather suspect that she has been in England much longer than she cares to have it appear. I think she has been living in the neighbourhood of the Dunfor estates, learning everything and forming her own opinions. Indeed, besides inheriting what for the last five years we have all thought was your own property, she seems to have inherited something of the hard, practical disposition of your uncle, the late Earl of Dunfor—a disposition which, I suppose, he himself acquired during his early years as a pioneer in that country. It is extraordinary, but Miss Jane Braddock appears actually to believe that for a young man, life in Canada is infinitely superior to life in England. I thought at first this was merely affectation on her part, but I have come to the conclusion that she is quite sincere in her illusion."

Again his lordship sighed deeply, and said, in a tone of plaintive despair—

"I suppose, then, there is nothing for me to do but marry this dreadful person?"

The solicitor coughed slightly and discreetly behind his open palm.

"I quite agree with you, my lord," he said. "But if I may venture a word of caution, I should advise you to approach Miss Braddock quite as you would a lady of your own class, for there seems to be an odd stratum of independence in her nature which puts it quite on the cards that she may refuse you."

"How old do you say she is?" asked his lordship.

"I think she must be nearing forty."

"Well, as I am thirty-four myself, the discrepancy of age need not trouble us. You regard her as rather a hard-favoured individual?"

"She is businesslike, but scarcely beautiful," was the noncommittal reply of the lawyer.

"Well, anyhow, I'll make the plunge," said his lordship, with something like a groan.

This conversation had taken place in the town house of the Earl of Dunfor. His legal representative had lunched with him, discussing the situation as well as the viands. When the solicitor had taken his departure, the young Earl set out on his quest of the Golden Fleece; but his courage being somewhat in need of bracing up, his course deflected to the club, where tonics are dispensed in the smoke-room, and so we find him ruminating on his hard luck, with a large empty glass and a half-consumed syphon of soda on the table at his elbow, to which more power, say all sympathetic persons.

Cassalis, seventeenth Earl of Dunfor, was indeed to be pitied. Others in years past enjoyed the fun, and now he was called upon to pay for it. The Earls of Dunfor had been, for the most part, a betting and drinking lot, and in spite of all that the earlier members of the family did to preserve intact the estates by means of a rigid entail, the legal difficulties were gotten over by their descendants so effectively that the fourteenth Earl, who lived a short but vividly expensive existence, had succeeded in disencumbering himself of the last vestige of property which remained to the Dunfors, and nothing descended to his successor but the title.

His successor possessed three brothers, the eldest of whom emigrated to Canada some time before the fifteenth Earl's death; and shortly after that event, the two younger brothers followed the example of their senior, leaving the eldest brother to enjoy the title and whatever pickings his legal representative could squeeze out from the remnant of what had once been a fine property. The fifteenth Earl died without children, and it was thought for a time that the father of young Cassalis would inherit, he belonging to a distant branch of the Dunfor family; but the only son of the eldest of the three Canadian brothers proved his right to the title, and came over, a millionaire, to enjoy it. Mineral lands were the making of the elder emigrant. His only son had quietly, through agents, purchased the Dunfor estates before putting forward his claim to the title. The estates, therefore, he could leave to whom he pleased—a fact that he rather gruffly impressed upon George Cassalis, the presumptive seventeenth Earl, for the sixteenth Earl was a bachelor. He urged the young man, who was then twenty-four and just out of college, to visit Canada, look about him, and accept one of the many opportunities that country afforded to youth and energy; but Cassalis said that London amply supplied all his frugal needs, and he chose to remain in the metropolis. A small patrimony of not quite five hundred a year had been left to George Cassalis, and, with an earldom in prospect, there seemed to him little doubt that, being a good-looking fellow, he might secure a satisfactory heiress. But five years elapsed without this desirable event taking place. There were too many certainties in the market, so far as noblemen were concerned, for heiresses of value to invest good money on what was merely a prospect. By the time Cassalis was verging upon thirty the sixteenth Earl died unexpectedly, and on his will being read, it was found that his extensive property and fortune were left to the eldest representative of his father's two younger brothers, whoever he or she might be, for the noble Earl had not taken the trouble to look up his Canadian relatives during his lifetime. These relatives were advertised for, but not discovered, and Cassalis became seventeenth Earl of Dunfor and heir to the estates as well, should this Canadian claimant not put in an appearance.

After three or four years Cassalis looked upon himself as safe, and, with the help of moneylenders, acted accordingly. He even, upon application to the courts, had his claim to the estates partially acknowledged by an order which, after due lapse of time, would become permanent. But now, in the fifth year since the reading of the will, there calmly entered upon the scene the missing heiress, and the Earl found himself deeply in debt, possessing an empty title and a small income, while confronted with the necessity of accounting for every penny that the estates had produced during the five years.

Muttering something that sounded profane, the young man drew in his long legs, removed his hands from the depths of his pockets, adjusted his hat properly on his head, raised his glass, but, finding it empty, placed it on the table again, walked out of the club, hailed a hansom, and drove to Grosvenor Square, to make what was, after all, his first proposal of marriage to a hard-featured woman of forty.

Notwithstanding his promise to the lawyer, he evidently did not intend to waste much time on sentiment, for he retained the hansom.

Miss Braddock seemed bent on doing things in style. The house in Grosvenor Square proved to be an expensive one, and a dignified man-in-waiting opened the door for his lordship and recognised him.

"I am sorry, my lord," said the man, "but Miss Braddock is not at home. She went out about twenty minutes ago, and said she would return within the hour, and as she always does exactly what she says, perhaps your lordship will wait."

The Earl of Dunfor heaved a gentle sigh of relief on learning of the lady's absence; but, after all, though a crisis may be postponed, it must ultimately be met, and so, with another sigh, which was not one of relief, his lordship said he would wait. Possessing, after all, some of the slight common sense of his race, he thought it best to get the ordeal over, and as soon as possible learn his fate one way or another.

He expected to be shown into an empty room, but the servant, throwing open the door, announced, in an impressive voice—

"The Earl of Dunfor!"

A refined-looking, beautiful girl, who might be anywhere from twenty to twenty-four years of age, rose to greet him from a table where she had been writing. There was a little air of eagerness in her manner and a welcoming smile on her pretty lips as she held out her hand to him.

"How do you do, sir?" she said, in a charming voice, with something, Cassalis suspected, of the American accent in it. "I have often heard of you, and am very glad to make your acquaintance. I suppose you have come to see Miss Braddock?"

His lordship stammered that such had been his intention, then trailed off into compliment, which he was too embarrassed to make effective, intimating haltingly that the presence in which he found himself more than compensated for the absence, and so forth and so forth. When he came to a halt, the girl laughed in a most friendly manner, while her clear, dancing eyes seemed to find something very amusing in the young man's abashed attitude.

"Oh, dear, no!" she said. "My presence could never atone for the absence of one who is such good company as Miss Jane Braddock. I am quite sure you will be delighted when you meet her."

His lordship murmured that he was sure he would.

"She is such a straightforward person," continued the girl, after requesting his lordship to be seated, sitting down herself on the corner of the sofa. "For several years I have been her secretary, and probably know her better than anyone else, and no one admires her more than I do, although I hope that you will come to the same opinion."

"That is very good of you, Miss—Miss—Miss——"

"My name is Hilda Winterbourn," explained the girl, "and Miss Braddock is a distant relative of mine. I call her my aunt, but she is not an aunt in reality. We are both just revelling in our first visit to England."

"Ah, you are from Canada, too?" suggested Cassalis.

"Oh, yes," replied Hilda, "I am a Canadian, as Miss Braddock is. We have both read so much of England—about its history and its associations and its grand record of literary achievement. I am an ardent admirer of the heroes and heroines it has sent out to India and to the furthest corners of the earth, as, indeed, my own ancestors came, to meet difficulties and to baffle them, to overcome obstacles, to conquer and to prosper, each doing something for the furtherance of the great Empire to which he or she belongs. I often think of my own grandmother—for, after all, it is hardest on the women—who died broken-hearted in exile—broken-hearted that there was no prospect of her ever seeing her own land again. But though they may die, they never flinch. Thus, finally, their descendants and the Empire reap the reward of their devotion. I think, Lord Dunfor, you must be proud to belong to such a race, doing your duty here in the heart of the Empire, as they have done theirs on the outskirts, to uphold its great traditions."

The girl's eyes glowed with the enthusiasm of the sentiments she uttered. His lordship, with downcast eyes, fumbled with his hat. His face slowly turned a dull, red-brick colour.

"We—we do what we can," he said, in a voice that was scarcely audible, remembering that his duty had been done in the clubs, in the gambling-rooms, and on the racecourses, with some foreign relaxation thrown in.

The girl sprang suddenly to her feet, with a little laugh that had nevertheless the suggestion of a sob in it.

"You must excuse me, Lord Dunfor," she said. "I am merely trying to explain to you how deeply Miss Braddock and I feel what you might call the sentimental side of Empire. I think that we at the remote four corners cherish all this more deeply than perhaps you do here at the centre, for I have not yet met anyone on this side of the Atlantic who seems as enthusiastic on the subject as I. They all take it in such a matter-of-fact, undemonstrative sort of way. Why, I believe I'm embarrassing you at this moment with my fervour!"

"Indeed, you are not, Miss Winterbourn," replied his lordship, speaking without restraint for the first time since his entrance into the room. "I am delighted to have heard what you said, and I am sorry if you think our people over here unresponsive. I shouldn't wonder if our school system has something to do with it. We are taught to repress ourselves, and anything approaching enthusiasm is frowned upon. Now, in the Canadian schools, perhaps that is not the case."

"Indeed it is not!" cried Hilda. "We fly the British flag from every schoolhouse, and I read with amazement the other day that here in London, on some occasion or other, you were afraid to hoist your flag, in case it would offend somebody. The children of Canada are wildly patriotic, and in that they resemble the young people in the United States rather than those of this country. But here I am chattering to you as if you were one of my oldest friends, instead of being a complete stranger who has come to see someone else."

"Well, I hope," said his lordship, "it will not be long before you come to regard me as one of your oldest friends, and if that happens, I shall like it very much. I think you are a girl who has a great many friends."

This was a longish speech for the reticent nobleman to make, and Hilda looked up at him approvingly. It occurred to her that, under proper training, this young man might ultimately become a conversationalist. At first he had seemed quite boyishly shy, which amazed her, for in most of the books she had read, and in many of the plays she had seen, a titled young man was rather apt to be the villain—a bold-speaking, evil-staring sort of person whom it was well to avoid. Cassalis, seventeenth Earl of Dunfor, was the first member of the aristocracy she had met, and in her capacity of secretary she consequently heard a good deal about this person whom the heiress was to dispossess.

Ordinarily, her sympathy would have gone out towards him; but Dunfor was accounted a fool, who had so thoroughly played ducks and drakes with his opportunities, that she came to regard him with something like contempt. This contempt was augmented by the fact that the Earl's legal representative had actually proposed to Miss Braddock that she should make the young man a handsome allowance with which to keep up the dignity of the title. As this suggestion must have been made with the consent, if not the connivance, of Dunfor himself, Miss Winterbourn found her contempt growing into scorn. All the young men she knew in Western Canada were eager enough for money, but they would have disdained taking it from a woman, especially when they made no sort of return for value received.

Hilda, who knew the Earl's age—that information coming with other particulars pertaining to the transfer of the estates—had pictured his lordship as a rather broken-down, leering, oldish-looking man, already wrinkled, with pasty face and the hair getting thin on the top of his head. She expected to see a person to whom the term "well-preserved" could be applied, and was therefore amazed to meet a fresh-looking, young fellow, who gave little evidence of having attained his majority. He even blushed like a schoolgirl and stammered like a schoolboy, while the patrician ease of manner which she had looked forward to, was non-existent in his case, for any farm-lad of her acquaintance would have seemed Chesterfieldian compared with him. She found herself readjusting her ideas concerning the nobleman, and the readjustment was not at all to his disadvantage.

"Yes," she answered at last. He had grown visibly uneasy during the long pause. "Yes, I am so fortunate as to possess many friends; but I suppose my list would look meagre compared with that of a London man like yourself."

"Well," said his lordship, "if you were talking of acquaintances, a London man certainly possesses a great many; but speaking of friends, do you know, I don't believe I've got a friend in the world."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Then that's the reason of it," she said breathlessly.

"The reason of what?" asked Cassalis.

"Your playing ducks and drakes."

The young man at first seemed inclined to resent this remark; then he laughed quite genially, and she joined him, saying—

"I am afraid that was a very rude remark of mine."

"Oh, not at all, and it contains the merit of truthfulness. I have played ducks and drakes with a fortune which it now turns out is not my own."

"Ah! And have you come to beg clemency from the owner?"

Cassalis suddenly remembered the real object of his visit, which, since he entered that room, had been entirely forgotten; and, to his amazement, he found that the project which earlier in the day appeared, to say the least, distasteful, was now actually abhorrent.

"My legal adviser," he explained, "thought I should call upon Miss Braddock and talk over the situation with her. You see, after all, we are by way of being relatives."

"So you are. But doesn't it occur to you that, having allowed all these years to pass without any effort on your part to make the acquaintance of Miss Braddock, it is rather late in the day to pretend an interest in her now?"

"Miss Winterbourn, I think you are inclined to be a little unfair. I come to visit Miss Braddock because she is living in Grosvenor Square, and all I have to do is to jump into a hansom—— Oh, by Jove!" his lordship interrupted himself, "I told the hansom to wait, and am paying two-and-six an hour for it! I suppose that's what you'd call playing ducks and drakes."

"Yes," said the girl quietly, touching the bell. And when the servant appeared, "Pay Lord Dunfor's cabman," she said, "and dismiss him." Then turning to Cassalis with a smile, she added: "You must economise, you know, for I warn you that any appeal to Miss Braddock will be in vain. She cares nothing about the title or its support, and has become rather prejudiced against your lordship—the ducks and drakes, you know."

"Ah! Is she more prejudiced against me than you are?"

"I'm not prejudiced against you."

"You were."

The girl laughed.

"You think, then, that your personal appearance is so much better than your reputation that it has won me over?"

"Oh, I know I'm not much on personal appearance, but, then, hang it all, the devil's never quite so black as he is painted, and I shouldn't like you to think I'm done in jet! I fancy both you and Miss Braddock see only one side of the case. You must remember that even so stubborn a thing as a fact has two or three sides. For instance, you spoke just now about the laggard fashion in which I sought out Miss Braddock, but you quite ignore the fact that for five years I have been advertising everywhere for her, or, at least, for the invisible legatee who has since materialised into Miss Braddock. Dash it all, Miss Winterbourn, do be reasonably fair! What more could I have done? Not till this morning did I know Miss Braddock's address, when my solicitor gave it to me, and you must admit I haven't lost any time in availing myself of the information."

Hilda Winterbourn was sitting on the end of the sofa, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

"Why, Lord Dunfor, you can talk like a streak when you get started!"

"Like a what?" asked his lordship.

"It's a phrase we use out West—like a streak. I suppose it means a streak of lightning, but I don't know. Now, why did you not go to Canada when your uncle asked you to do so? It would have made a man of you."

"Oh, thanks, Miss Winterbourn!" He stiffened perceptibly in his chair.

"You mustn't get offended at anything I say. I am merely a secretary, you know, and it's my duty to say what I think without fear or favour—at least, that is the condition on which Miss Braddock has engaged me. If she found me hedging, evading facts, or trying to be unnecessarily polite, she wouldn't stand it."

"I am rather sorry you dismissed that cab, Miss Winterbourn."

"Regrets are useless, Lord Dunfor. You couldn't escape in a hansom, because we could overtake you in our motor. Miss Braddock has become an expert chauffeur since we have been in England, and often drives the car herself, although she keeps an excellent man for that purpose. I hope I have convinced you that you cannot get away without our permission. However, do not be frightened. My intentions are laudable, although I sometimes express myself clumsily. What I should have said was that if you had taken your uncle's advice ten years ago, and gone to Canada, you might have become a more practical man than you are now. Can you, for instance, do anything useful?"

"Yes. Like Miss Braddock, I can drive a motor-car."

"Then is it your intention to become a chauffeur when you have transferred the Dunfor estates to Miss Braddock?"

"I confess I haven't given much thought to the matter."

"Haven't given much thought when you are on the verge of—— Oh, dear, you do seem to be a hopeless, helpless sort of person!"

"What would you advise me to do, Miss Winterbourn?"

"I'm not your secretary, Lord Dunfor; I am secretary to Miss Braddock. She has first claim to all my advice."

"I had somehow come to fancy you a friend."

"You say that very nicely, Lord Dunfor. Well, then, as a friend, I will ask you one question. Do you possess a private income?"

"A mere triviality—less than five hundred a year."

"Pounds?"

"Pounds, of course."

"Why, that's two thousand five hundred dollars! With an annual amount like that, you could, if you possess any business capacity at all, make a fortune in Canada."

"I doubt the business capacity, Miss Winterbourn."

"I don't see why you should doubt that; your uncles showed great business capacity. Why should you be bereft of all good sense? It's merely the enervating life you've been living over here, and the false notions you have imbibed regarding money. Does it never occur to you that a well-equipped man should experience the same exultation in making money of his own rather than inheriting it, or marrying for it, that a thoroughbred horse feels in winning a race."

"Now that you put it that way, Miss Winterbourn—— By the way, are you going back to Canada?"

"Yes, after I have seen a little more of England."

"Why, I'd like the privilege of showing some portions of England to you, Miss Winterbourn, and then, when you go back, I think I'll have a shy at Canada."

"When I go back? Why, what has that to do with your visit?"

"Well, I should like it if there was someone in the great Dominion whom I knew, and whose good wishes I might hope for."

"But you have my good wishes now. You are not at all the sort of person I thought you were."

"Does Miss Braddock share your prejudices against me?"

"Oh, Miss Braddock! Don't flatter yourself you can win her over as you have a simpleton like myself. Still, I'll say a good word for you to her; but if you take my advice as well as my good wishes, you will forget Miss Braddock and turn your attention to Canada instead. Perhaps you didn't know that Miss Braddock was a teacher of elocution, and she is quite formidable when she begins declaiming. You'll never know what a cumberer of the earth you are until you hear Miss Braddock expatiate on the uselessness of man, especially the degenerate scions of old families. But I do hope Miss Braddock will allow me to stay in the room when she's talking to you."

"You again bring up regrets for the hansom cab, and fears about the motor-car."

Miss Winterbourn hid her face in her hands, laughing and laughing until the young man, thinking he was the object of her merriment, grew uneasy and again began to redden.

"Are you making merry at my expense, Miss Winterbourn?" he asked at last. It was a few moments before the girl could speak.

"Not at you exactly," she said at last, "but at the situation. Miss Braddock has gone out to walk in the Park by herself, so that she may prepare eloquence for your reception."

"For my reception? Why, she didn't know I was coming here to-day!"

"Yes, she did; but you were not expected till about five o'clock. I said you'd probably wait till after dinner, for I imagine a Society man in London knows he looks well in evening clothes."

"Miss Winterbourn, there must be some mistake. No one knew I was coming to Grosvenor Square except myself—that is," stammered the hopelessly truthful young man, "no one—except—except——" And here he halted, but the girl finished the sentence for him.

"Except your lawyer—your legal adviser, I think you called him."

"Yes, my solicitor."

"Ah, solicitor! That's the word. Well, why didn't you send him to solicit for you, as John Alden did for Captain Miles Standish. It's a solicitor's business to solicit, isn't it?"

"Really, Miss Winterbourn, I don't know what you're talking about. I have not the honour of the acquaintance of the Captain you refer to, nor do I know Mr.—Mr. What's-his-name Alden."

"But don't you know that your solicitor and Miss Braddock's solicitor have put their legal heads together in conference, quite agreeing, in that absurd English way of theirs, that the impoverished nobleman is to marry the wild, untamed heiress from the West?"

"Good Heavens!" cried the startled Earl of Dunfor. "You mean to say that these two solicitors have dared——"

"Well, our solicitor dared, and you ought to have seen the way my dear friend, Miss Jane Braddock, carried on! Why, you'd think, to hear her talk, that no rich American woman had ever married a poor but proud English lord since the world began; but I can tell you that Miss Braddock has risen to the occasion. When you fling yourself upon your knees—I know Miss Braddock will let me stop if I can get your permission—you'll then learn for the first time the capability of the English language. I really am sorry for you, now that I see you aren't half bad, as you say over here, so let me ring for another hansom, and meanwhile I myself will sing your praises to the angry woman."

"Well, that's very good of you, Miss Winterbourn, and you may begin the song by stating that I have not the slightest intention of marrying Miss Braddock, even if she owned the mines of Golconda as well as the estates of Dunfor."

"Do you mean to pretend that you did not come here to-day to propose to her?"

"Now, I say," hedged his lordship, "you know you're just chaffing me, and also you are quite well aware that I came to pay a friendly and not a declamatory call upon Aunt Jane, who is by way of being a relative of mine, seemingly as objectionable as my uncle, the late Earl. No, Miss Winterbourn, I'm going over to Canada. You wouldn't mind if I went on the same steamer that carried you?"

"Mind? I should be delighted, of course; but I am going by way of Quebec and Montreal."

The girl had risen to her feet, as if to dismiss him.

"That would suit me down to the ground," said his lordship. "I went over to New York once in August. Beastly place and beastly hot! I'd like to go by Montreal this time."

He held out his hand to her. She took it, smiling at him, and somehow he didn't seem to know when to let go; but to equalise that situation, she showed no heedless impatience in withdrawing her hand, and thus the catastrophe fell upon them.

The door burst open as if impelled by some explosive, and there entered a tall, gaunt, mannish woman, with a grim, hard, domineering face framed in iron-grey hair. She turned in cold fury to the obsequious footman.

"Did not I command you to tell the Earl of Dunfor I was not at home if he called, and you knew I went away solely because I wished this announcement to be the truth and not a lie?"

"Yes, madam; I told his lordship so."

"It is all my fault, Aunt Jane," cried Hilda. "You know I wished to see Lord Dunfor, so I gave orders he was to be shown in here, for it was also the truth that I was at home."

"Oh, I knew how it would be, Hilda!" cried the angry woman. "I told you that you yourself would spoil the plan. Here this profligate spends an hour in your company, and I find you standing there holding each other's hands!"

The young lady withdrew her hand with promptitude.

"I knew what this scapegrace would do. With all the detective force in London at his disposal, how long would it take him to find out that you were the heiress, and not I? Haven't you read those Sherlock Holmes books? Nothing can be concealed from a London rake in this shameful city. Oh, Hilda, Hilda, we were getting on so nicely," cried Miss Braddock, "and now you have spoiled it all!"

His lordship made a stammering attempt to speak, but, failing, reached forward and again took the girl's hand, which she, with a smile, did not withhold.

"Do you know, Aunt Jane," murmured his lordship, clinging to the hand, "I don't think she has."