d death, if you will--that brings such as myself
into the ranks of the 'Double-Four'? It is the weariness which kills,
Peter Ruff. One must needs keep it from one's bones."

"Marquis," Peter Ruff answered, "I do not profess to understand you.
I am not weary of life, in fact I love it. I am looking forward to the
years when I have enough money--and it seems as though that time is not
far off--when I can buy a little place in the country, and hunt a
little and shoot a little, and live a simple out-of-door life. You see,
Marquis, we are as far removed as the poles."

"Obviously!" Sogrange answered.

"Your confidence," Peter Ruff continued, "the confidence with which you
have honored me, inspires me to make you one request. I am here, indeed,
as a friend of the family. You will not ask me to help in any designs
you may have against the Clenarvon jewels?"

Sogrange leaned back in his chair and laughed softly. His lips, when
they parted from his white teeth, resolved themselves into lines
which at that moment seemed to Peter Ruff more menacing than mirthful.
Sogrange was, in many ways, a man of remarkable appearance.

"Oh, Peter Ruff," he said, "you are a bourgeois little person! You
should have been the burgomaster in a little German town, or a French
mayor with a chain about your neck. We will see. I make no promises.
All that I insist upon, for the present, is that you do not leave this
house-party without advising me--that is to say, if you are really
looking forward to that pleasant life in the country, where you will
hunt a little and shoot a little, and grow into the likeness of a
vegetable. You, with your charming wife! Peter Ruff, you should be
ashamed to talk like that! Come, I must play bridge with the Countess. I
am engaged for a table."

The two men parted. Peter Ruff was uneasy. On his way from the room,
Lord Sotherst insisted upon his joining a pool.

"Charming fellow, Sogrange," the latter remarked, as he chalked his cue.
"He has been a great friend of the governor's--he and his father before
him. Our families have intermarried once or twice."

"He seems very agreeable," Peter Ruff answered, devoting himself to the
game.

The following night, being the last but one before the wedding itself,
a large dinner-party had been arranged for, and the resources of even so
princely a mansion as Clenarvon Court were strained to their utmost
by the entertainment of something like one hundred guests in the great