her deliberately encourages him makes me fear that you may find
yourself at any moment in a very difficult position. I do not wish to
say anything against your friends or your stepmother. I hope you will
believe that. But nowadays people who are poor themselves, but who know
the value and the use of money, are tempted to do things for the sake
of it which are utterly unworthy and wrong. I want you to understand
that if any time you should need a friend it will give me very great
happiness indeed to be of any service to you I can. I am a bachelor, it
is true, but I am old enough to be your father, and I can bring you
into touch at once with friends more suitable for you and your station.
Will you come to me, or send for me, if you find yourself in any sort
of trouble?"

She said very little, but she looked at him for a moment with her
wonderful eyes, very soft with unshed tears.

"You are very, very kind," she said. "I have been very unhappy, and I
have felt very lonely. It will make everything seem quite different to
know there is some one to whom I may come for advice if--if--"

"I know, dear," the Duke interrupted, rising and holding out his arm.
"I know quite well what you mean. All I can say is, don't be afraid to
come or to send, and don't let any one bully you into throwing away
your life upon a scoundrel like De Brensault. I am going to give you
back to Andrew now. He is a good fellow--one of the best. I only wish--"

The Duke broke off short. After all, he remembered, he had no right to
complete his sentence. Andrew, he felt, was no more of a marrying man
than he himself, and he was the last person in the world to ever think
of marrying a great heiress. They found him waiting about outside.

"I must relinquish my charge," the Duke said smiling. "You will not
forget, Miss Le Mesurier?"

"I am never likely to," she answered gratefully.

CHAPTER VII

The Count de Brensault had seldom been in a worse temper. That Jeanne
should have flouted him was not in itself so terrible, because he had
quite made up his mind that sooner or later he would take a coward's
revenge for the slights he had been made to endure at her hands. But
that he should have been flouted in the presence of a whole roomful of
people, that he should have been deliberately left for another man, was
a different matter altogether. His first impulse when Jeanne left him,
was to walk out of the house and have nothing more to say to the
P