longer . . . or no, don’t say anything. . . . Ill write to him . . . to-morrow perhaps . . . or the day after. . . .”

He took Rolleston’s arm:

‘‘Tell me, old chap,’’ he said, ‘‘tell me. If I were to ask Lord Bakefield for his daughter’s hand, what do you think would happen?”

Rolleston appeared to be nonplussed. He hesitated and then replied:

‘‘Miss Bakefield’s father is a peer, and perhaps you don’t know that her mother, the wonderful Lady Constance, who died some six years ago, was the grand-daughter of a son of George III. Therefore she had an eighth part of blood royal running in her veins.”’

Edward Rolleston pronounced these words with such unction that Simon, the irreverent Frenchman, could not help laughing:

‘‘The deuce! An eighth! So that Miss Bakefield can still boast a sixteenth part and her children will enjoy a thirty-second! My chances are diminishing! In the matter of blood royal, the most that I can lay claim to is a great-grandfather, a pork-butcher by trade, who voted for the death of Lows XVI.! That doesn’t amount to much!’’