demeanour--a
strong likeness between father and son.'

I had brought with me a bundle of old newspapers, and comparing these
as I went on, I proceeded to lay the incidents before him.

'The father,' I said, 'held, as you know, high office in a late
Administration, and was one of our big luminaries in politics; he has
also been President of the Council of several learned societies, and
author of a book on Modern Ethics. His son was rapidly rising to
eminence in the _corps diplomatique_, and lately (though, strictly
speaking, _unebenbuertig_) contracted an affiance with the Prinzessin
Charlotte Mariana Natalia of Morgen-ueppigen, a lady with a strain of
indubitable Hohenzollern blood in her royal veins. The Orven family is
a very old and distinguished one, though--especially in modern
days--far from wealthy. However, some little time after Randolph had
become engaged to this royal lady, the father insured his life for
immense sums in various offices both in England and America, and the
reproach of poverty is now swept from the race. Six months ago, almost
simultaneously, both father and son resigned their various positions
_en bloc_. But all this, of course, I am telling you on the assumption
that you have not already read it in the papers.'

'A modern newspaper,' he said, 'being what it mostly is, is the one
thing insupportable to me at present. Believe me, I never see one.'

'Well, then, Lord Pharanx, as I said, threw up his posts in the fulness
of his vigour, and retired to one of his country seats. A good many
years ago, he and Randolph had a terrible row over some trifle, and,
with the implacability that distinguishes their race, had not since
exchanged a word. But some little time after the retirement of the
father, a message was despatched by him to the son, who was then in
India. Considered as the first step in the _rapprochement_ of this
proud and selfish pair of beings, it was an altogether remarkable
message, and was subsequently deposed to in evidence by a telegraph
official; it ran:

'"_Return. The beginning of the end is come._" Whereupon Randolph did
return, and in three months from the date of his landing in England,
Lord Pharanx was dead.'

'_Murdered_?'

A certain something in the tone in which this word was uttered by
Zaleski puzzled me. It left me uncertain whether he had addressed to me
an exclamation of conviction, or a simple question. I must have looked
this feeling, for he said at once: