hing.

Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the Duchess permitted, and
people said that that was because he was the only young man who had
never shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in Lady
Adela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as she
would have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no one
else had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said or
done the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How _could_
he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then,
swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad that
she had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way,
that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her mother
had upon her.

But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it was
Roddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddy
was, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but he
had one nice place in Sussex, and Rachel would not, herself, be a
pauper.

Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these new
invaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing of
the classes, this perpetual urging of the working man to think.

"Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along without
thinkin'--why not the other fellers?"

She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothing
process that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finally
reassure her.

She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire and
talked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothers
departed.

When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part of
the long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two of
them sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their hands
white and sharp and definite.

"Who else is dinin' on Thursday?"

She gave him names. "The Prince and Princess are coming, you know, but
they aren't alarming. They've been often to see mother when they've been
over here before. They're getting old enough now to be comfortable. He
dances like anything still."

"I always like dinin' in the place you're dancin' at. You don't get that
shivery feeling comin' up the stairs and puttin' your gloves on. You're
one up on the others if you've been dinin'."

Lady Adela looked at him, and si