stayed me with
cushions; he offered to lend me books; he pestered me to drink his wine;
and he kept Elsie in champagne, which she annoyed me by accepting. Poor
dear Elsie clearly failed to understand the creature. 'He's so kind and
polite, Brownie, isn't he?' she would observe in her simple fashion. 'Do
you know, I think he's taken quite a fancy to you! And he'll be an earl
by-and-by. I call it romantic. How lovely it would seem, dear, to see
you a countess.'

'Elsie,' I said severely, with one hand on her arm, 'you are a dear
little soul, and I am very fond of you; but if you think I could sell
myself for a coronet to a pasty-faced young man with a pea-green
complexion and glassy blue eyes--I can only say, my child, you have
misread my character. He isn't a man: he's a lump of putty!'

I think Elsie was quite shocked that I should apply these terms to a
courtesy lord, the eldest son of a peer. Nature had endowed her with the
profound British belief that peers should be spoken of in choice and
peculiar language. 'If a peer's a fool,' Lady Georgina said once to me,
'people think you should say his temperament does not fit him for the
conduct of affairs: if he's a roue or a drunkard, they think you should
say he has unfortunate weaknesses.'

What most of all convinced me, however, that the wishy-washy young man
with the pea-green complexion must be playing some stealthy game, was
the demeanour and mental attitude of Mr. Higginson, his courier. After
the first day, Higginson appeared to be politeness and deference itself
to us. He behaved to us both, _almost_ as if we belonged to the titled
classes. He treated us with the second best of his twenty-seven
graduated manners. He fetched and carried for us with a courtly grace
which recalled that distinguished diplomat, the Comte de
Laroche-sur-Loiret, at the station at Malines with Lady Georgina. It is
true, at his politest moments, I often caught the undercurrent of a
wicked twinkle in his eye, and felt sure he was doing it all with some
profound motive. But his external demeanour was everything that one
could desire from a well-trained man-servant; I could hardly believe it
was the same man who had growled to me at Florence, 'I shall be even
with you yet,' as he left our office.

'Do you know, Brownie,' Elsie mused once, 'I really begin to think we
must have misjudged Higginson. He's so extremely polite. Perhaps, after
all, he is really a count, who has been exiled and