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Mr. Vansittart shook some of the ashes of his cigar into a small gilt dish at his elbow, and glanced quickly and half-inquiringly at his son's guest.

"Isn't he rather young to begin at that sort of thing already?" Farquart said doubtfully, puzzled, to tell the truth, as to what line he was to take up in the discussion.

"Young? Of course, yes, he is young, but what then? What else is he to do? Just think over the situation for yourself. You can't well put a man of Borroughdale's position into a profession, can you? And if you could it would only be into the army; and supposing he were to pass his examination, which I own I imagine myself to be more than doubtful, there is nothing well open for him but the Life Guards, and I don't think, between ourselves, that Borroughdale is exactly the cut of a Life Guardsman."

Farquart didn't think so either, so nod ded his head silently in token of acquies

cence.

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"On the other hand," continued Mr. Vansittart; he can't very well go on living here all alone. I have my own little property in Lincolnshire to look after, not to speak of my office, which naturally at present takes up the greater part of my time. Of course if he could always have a man like yourself, my dear Farquart, at his elbow, the thing would be simplified, but I know, we all know, how impossible it is to expect that, and I own I have a dread, a perfect nervous horror of his falling into the wrong hands."

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"I shouldn't say there was much danger of anything of that sort," Farquart replied thoughtfully. "Borroughdale mayn't be what you call clever, but he is about the least of a fool of any man I ever met." Quite so quite so; I readily admit all that; still you, who know him so well, don't need to be told how oddly immovable he is in his own quiet way, and if he were once to take the bit into his teeth, no power of mine would have the smallest effect. Indeed, of power, real, practical | power, I have, as you are doubtless aware, absolutely not a single fraction. The fact is," Mr. Vansittart continued, a minute later, with a smile, "our whole relative position is such a particularly odd one, that it obliges me to look at the matter rather from the mother's point of view than the father's, and I am sure you will admit that any prudent mother under the circumstances would pine to see Borroughdale safely married?"

"I suppose so," Farquart answered,

smiling too, but wondering rather, at the same time, in the depths of his soul, why all this confidence had been bestowed upon him, and whether there was or was not any part he was expected to play in the matter. Everything depends, I suppose, upon whom he does marry?" he said tentatively.

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Mr. Vansittart opened his lips as if to reply, but closed them again before any sound had been emitted, and almost at the same instant Borroughdale entered the room, and the conversation was necessarily suspended.

A few days afterwards Lady Venetia Foljambe and her mother duly arrived. The latter was unquestionably a magnificent-looking woman still, and had evidently once been a superbly beautiful one. Lady Venetia, on the other hand, was not in the least magnificent nor yet particularly beautiful either. She was simply a bright, healthy-looking blonde, with a preternaturally small waist, and a laugh which rang like a bugle-call through every vault and turret of the castle. Farquart himself was charmed with her, and thought her delightful; Borroughdale, on the contrary, took no pains to conceal the very small amount of pleasure which this renewal of the acquaintance gave him, indeed his own moody and resolute taciturnity never seemed to come into stronger relief than when brought into forcible contrast with the airy volubility and sylph-like grace of this young lady. Although there were a good many other ladies staying at the castle, Lady Venetia, as it happened, was the only unmarried one, consequently his avoidance of her society became after a while sufficiently marked for Farquart laughingly to take him to task for it, averring that he was really not worthy of the privilege of playing host to such a delightfully agreeable and amusing being.

"She is the silliest girl I ever met in my life!" was all the response he elicited from Lord Borroughdale.

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'Silly, my dear fellow? Excuse me, she is nothing of the sort. What would you have her do? Would you like her any better if she were to discourse upon Greek roots or Latin iambics at the breakfast table? If there is one thing more detestable than another it is a woman who loves displaying her learning, or rather, in nine cases out of ten, her ignorance, and obliging one to prevaricate like a Jesuit in order to conceal one's own consciousness of the fact."

"That may be all very fine for you, Farquart, who are clever enough yourself

for six, but I like a woman who talks |
sense. Nothing makes me feel such a
born idiot as a girl who insists upon gig-
gling and jabbering away, and throwing
her hands and eyes about as if she thought
she was upon the stage, and
wanted to try and persuade me that I was
upon it too."

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Well, and so we all are upon the stage, if it comes to that," Farquart said with a laugh.

"I'm not then, and I'm not going to pretend that I am either," the owner of Borroughdale responded sturdily. "Why the deuce can't they leave a fellow alone," he added with a growl of annoyance, which was not, Farquart suspected, exclusively directed against Lady Venetia.

was

the two friends found themselves settled within moderately easy reach of one another in London. Farquart - who had a talent for house decoration as for most other thingsnot long ensconcing himself in a delightfully irregular set of rooms not far from the river, let at a moderate rental and eminently available for artistic purposes. He did not call his principal sitting-room there a studio, but it was one to all practical intents, and few studios were more assiduously supplied with every imaginable appliance, sentimental no less than essential, for the production of works of art. Under these favoring conditions he at once embarked upon several pictures, for one of which, a considerable historical In short, the visit of that young lady canvas, he requested Borroughdale to sit and her mother was hardly, from a practi- to him in the character of a wounded cal point of view at least, to be called a Goth. Of these achievements, however, success, and perhaps in consequence of he himself spoke lightly, declaring that he that fact, they soon afterwards withdrew was far from having made up his mind to to scenes where their varied but combined embark definitely and irrevocably upon attractions were more likely to produce the field of art, inclining rather to look their wonted effect. Mr. Vansittart was upon it as an occasional divertissement, far too astute a man to allow his dis- and letters as the real prop and stay of comfiture - if he felt any to appear his future steps. Meanwhile he did, he upon the surface. Circumstances, how- owned, intend sending in his present ever, obliged him also not very long after-efforts to the next opening of the Acadwards to depart, and his doing so was the emy, which done, he should then, as elsesignal for the dispersal of the rest of the where, placidly await the decisive and guests, so that our two young men again all-compelling finger-touch of destiny. found themselves left tête-à-tête to pursue their own devices.

They remained where they were for about another fortnight, when Farquart started for Scotland to pay some visits, promising to return to Borroughdale Castle on his way south. This, however, he failed to do, his visits northwards prolonging themselves considerably beyond their original limits, and by the time he was again passing through Fellshire Lord Borroughdale had gone elsewhere, so that they did not meet again until they found themselves once more together at Oxford. This was to be Farquart's last term there, he having come to the university a full year before his friend. Borroughdale, however, speedily announced his own intention of leaving at the same time. As for his degree, he knew that there wasn't the remotest chance, he declared, of his taking it, and he was sick to death of the whole concern, both the place and the people. Farquart, as in friendship he felt bound, urged the unadvisability of so speedily, not to say ignominiously, cutting short his scholastic career; but Burroughdale as usual was immovable, and not many weeks after the close of the term

Though far from a rich man, he possessed a comfortable bachelor's income of his own some six or seven hundred a year which made this confiding trust in the cruel or kindly hazards of inspiration a less adventurous one than it otherwise might have been. Besides, was he not still rich, be it remembered, in all the first fresh glow of unimpaired self-belief, which so far had never known the chilling touch of failure?

Lord Borroughdale spent quite as much time in his friend's studio as he had previously spent in his rooms at Oxford. He was not a whit more conversationable either than before, and hardly a whit less consciously and curiously uncouth, so that, except for such imaginary halo as his name and the rumored vastness of his possessions might be supposed to confer, he could scarcely in fairness be said to form any part of its more ornamental or picturesque adjuncts. Mr. Vansittart also paid it several visits, and whenever he found Farquart alone he invariably brought the conversation round to his son, urging the former to use his very utmost influence to induce him to take up his proper place in society, and refrain

from so cruelly and so wantonly abusing | was a man much to be pitied. What was those gifts a too kind Providence had to be done with so impossible a son? If heedlessly confided to him. His own in- Borroughdale had only gambled, or kept fluence, he admitted with a sigh, went for race-horses, or worse things even, why little or nothing, but surely the opinion of still there would have been always somea man of Borroughdale's own age, so bril- thing to be said about him. He could liant, popular, clear-sighted, must, he po- have been put into a category - he could litely urged, have some little weight with have been talked of as wild, fast, sporting that strangely abnormal and misguided being. Farquart promised to do his best, and as a matter of fact did it. Over and over again he tried to induce Borroughdale to accompany him to some ball or other scene of festivity, always however without success. He had been to things of that sort before, that young man invariably declared, and he didn't care to go to any of them again. He knew nobody, and didn't want to know anybody; he couldn't dance, and he hated being jabbered at and having eyes made at him for nothing.

At this point Farquart generally burst out laughing.

"Upon my word you are a nice unreasonable fellow!" he would say. "When a man has the misfortune to possess some eighty thousand a year of his own and two or three deer parks he really must expect to have to put up with a little of that sort of thing!"

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anything. But how upon earth was a gentleman -a member too of her Majesty's government-to account to his friends and society at large for a son who was known to be grown up; who was perfectly in his right mind, and capable of transacting his own business; who was possessed of an ancient title, and of one of the seven or eight most magnificently historical houses of England, but whom nobody knew; whom nobody ever saw; who hadn't a friend in the whole of London except a clever but rather obscurely connected young man called Farquart, and who spent the greater part of his time prowling about the streets in an old tweed shooting-coat?

This disastrous and highly demoraliz ing state of things had gone on for some considerable time, when late one afternoon in April Lord Borroughdale came lounging as usual into his friend's rooms with a big stick in his hands, expecting at Very likely, but I tell you I don't that hour to catch him alone. He was mischoose to put up with it. Why should taken, however. Two ladies were there, they make eyes at me, I should like to to whom the painter was at that moment know? You won't pretend that they care displaying some of his latest pictorial trifor me, and they don't, I suppose, expect umphs. One of these ladies presented me to hand them any of thosethe appearance of a short, stout, motherly, deer parks you talk of then and there out rather neutral-faced person of fifty, or of my waistcoat pocket, do they?" thereabouts, wearing a black bonnet and The end of it was that Borroughdale | skirt, and a cloak or cape which displayed of course went his own way, which really after all was not such a very reprehensible way so far as any body knew. He loafed a good deal about the streets, and in and out of exhibitions and museums, his shoulders always very rounded, and his hands plunged very deep down at the bottoms of his pockets. He had a big, ugly house of his own in Portman Square, the lease of which had just expired, and in the base of which he established himself with a couple of servants, a black retriever dog, and a great many disgracefully unaristocratic looking pipes. Farquart offered to do it all up for him, and turn it into a perfect miracle of beauty if he would let him, but this Borroughdale peremptorily declined. He hated pretty houses, he said at least he hated them to live in, he didn't so much mind looking at them when they belonged to other people.

Poor Mr. Vansittart! Certainly there

a good deal of gimp embroidery of the fashion of the year before last. The other lady was in black also, but tall, and slight, and young, or apparently young, for on this latter point Borroughdale at first was not absolutely certain. Hearing the door open Farquart turned rapidly round, and as rapidly introduced the two ladies as Mrs. and Miss Holland; which ceremony completed, the Marquis of Borroughdale shuffled hastily away to a rocking-chair which stood in an inner recess, upsetting two other chairs as he did so, in his haste to escape from publicity.

Farquart laughed, picked up the two chairs, and calmly continued his lecture. Left to himself Lord Borroughdale also regained equanimity, and applied himself dutifully to listen, though most of it, it must be owned, he had heard a good many times before. The name Holland did not at first convey to him any idea in

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particular, but chancing presently to hear Farquart address the younger lady by her Christian name, Katherine, just look at this a moment will you?" he suddenly remembered that, though he had never actually seen her before, he had heard a good deal from time to time about this Miss Katherine Holland. She was a cousin of Farquart's, he knew, and was considered immensely clever in some learned way or other, and he rather believed she had come into a lot of money. He had an idea too, he hardly knew why, that Farquart intended, or had intended, some time or other to marry her, though, whether he had actually acquired it from himself or had merely picked it up from others was more than he could distinctly recall.

These combined sources of interest caused him to look at the young lady with more attention than he generally bestowed upon her chattering sex.

Certainly Miss Holland did not appear to be the least in the world of a chatterer. She accorded her cousin's disquisitions all the respect of a nearly absolute silence, throwing in an occasional "Yes," or "Ah, I see," as a token merely of attention or acquiescence. At first the various objects about the room interfered somewhat with his view of her, but as the party approached his retreat he perceived that she was both unusually pale, and that the blackness of her hair and eyelashes no less than of her dress enhanced this natural pallor. Her figure was remarkably fine, but at first sight her face seemed wanting in the charm of animation, the mouth especially wearing that concentrated, slightly down-drooping set, which we see in those whose youth has been a joyless one, or who have lived for years under the pressure of some wearing calamity. The tour of inspection finished, the visitors were preparing to take their leave when Farquart, who since his first entrance had not again addressed Borroughdale, suddenly turned round to him.

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Oh, by the way, Borroughdale, you can clear up that point for us," he said. แ "My cousin asked me just before you came in where that picture of Romney's of the two girls in red velvet, one of them playing upon the tambourine, that was shown last year at Burlington House, came from, and I said I thought it was from Borroughdale. Wasn't I right?"

But the young man addressed, whose thoughts had travelled some way from the subject of art, was too much taken aback at first to answer very coherently.

"Romney's? Er-yes, I think there are some Romneys there," he said vague. ly, "or are they Gainsboroughs? I'm not really very sure."

"Of course, my dear fellow, there are any amount of Gainsboroughs and Romneys too for that matter," Farquart said with some impatience, "but this is a particular picture. You see the engraving of it in all the print shops. One of the girls became Duchess of Twickenham afterwards, or of Featheringdale, I'm not sure which. Why, if I'm not very much mistaken, they were both of them your own maternal great-aunts, so you can't really possibly forget."

"I do then, whether I can or I can't," Lord Borroughdale replied with his usual stolidity. "Are you an artist too, Miss Holland?" he added, turning with sudden audacity to that young lady, who with her chaperon was waiting near the door for the close of the discussion.

"No, I'm sorry to say I am not," she answered. "I am particularly good at appreciating other people's pictures, though, I think," she added, glancing round the room again with a smile.

"Yes, Farquart is a tremendous swell, isn't he?" Borroughdale said emphatically, and he thoroughly believed what he said.

After his two visitors were gone, the above named brilliant young man still showed symptoms of that irritation he had just evinced.

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Why upon earth couldn't you remember about that picture, Borroughdale?" he said in a tone of vexation. "What is the use of a man possessing pictures enough to set up half-a-dozen ordinary collections if, after all, he doesn't really know whether he has got them or not?"

"Well, my dear Farquart, if I don't remember, I don't, so there's no use in abusing a fellow about it. Besides, I don't believe that there is anything of the sort at Borroughdale."

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I thought you told me she was well

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He had relapsed into his usual air of taciturnity, and sat nursing one of his big knees, and occasionally cracking his finger joints as he had a graceful fashion of doing when he happened to be thinking of anything in particular. Farquart meanwhile had discovered something that was amiss in one of the canvases he was putting away, so had got out a paint-brush, and was administering gentle corrective touches with the point of it to the offending spot, stepping backwards from time to time as he did so in order to judge of the effect.

"If you were to marry Miss Holland, she er- might begin to enjoy herself, you know," Borroughdale presently said in a tone of profound reflection. Then, after a minute's pause, "Why don't you?" he added.

Farquart laughed and shook his head.
Perhaps because she has never asked

"You might ask her, though."

The other shook his head again and went to a shelf to look for a larger paintbrush.

"So she is now not what a fellow like you calls well off, but what she does, and I do too for that matter. She has about twenty thousand pounds of her own. Unluckily it only came to her comparatively lately; too late, she considers, to be of any use. Her mother made the most wretched marriage, married a sur-me," he answered. veyor, who not content with finding next to nothing to do, had a private lung complaint which carried him off about four years afterwards, leaving her in the utmost straits, though she was always too proud to let herself be helped by her relations. Then she lost a daughter, the only other child, and after struggling on for years in more or less misery, she died herself some five or six years ago, miserable of course at leaving Katherine without a penny in the world; and six months after, this wretched money dropped in from a cousin of the father's who had settled himself years ago in Australia, and who had never written, and whose very existence they had almost left off believing in!"

"So now she is comfortable?"

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Well, that depends. I should rather myself say not. She lives now with an uncle - a brother of her father - -a very decent sort of man in his way, and rather distinguished, I'm told, in the scientific world, but as poor as Job. He is believed, or believes himself, to be going blind too, and the consequence is that Katherine is always slaving away over his bottled beasts and concoctions of various sorts, and poring for hours at a time over the microscope, until she'll make herself blind too, I tell her, if she doesn't take care."

"That would be a pity. She has very fine eyes," Borroughdale said reflectively. Farquart laughed.

"That's the first time I ever heard you pay a woman a compliment in my life," he declared.

To this Borroughdale made no reply.

"You like her, don't you!" Borroughdale continued rather in a tone of admonition.

"Like her? Oh dear, yes. I like her very much; few people better, as far as that goes; but that is hardly reason enough for marrying her."

"Why not?"

Farquart laughed again, this time however with some irritation.

"What a queer fellow you are, Borroughdale," he said. "Why upon earth should you suddenly want to persecute me into marrying Katherine Holland? You can go and marry her yourself if it comes to that."

"I dare say I shouldn't so much mind," the other responded sturdily. 'Only she doesn't care about me, you see," he went on, "and possibly she does about you."

Farquart, who had emitted a sudden whistle of immeasurable astonishment at the first remark, smiled with a certain air of fatuity at the second.

"All very fine, my dear fellow; but it can't be done," he said. "It would be out of the question simply out of the question for me to marry now. It would be the ruin of me."

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"Not when she has money of her own." 'Yes, it would, all the same. The fact is, domesticity makes such desperate inroads upon a man. It cuts his pinions to the very quick, and I can't afford to have mine cut just yet a bit. Eight or nine

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