as a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been
detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not
pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been
based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man.
Happily he had been careful. He had not trusted blindly to Providence,
and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an
excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas
Sir Edmund--well, Sir Edmund's position was very different. Sir Edmund
had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result?

Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance.
It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined
man dressed that evening.

Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be
the scene of a small sale. The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and
some very rare china, had already gone to Christie's. The delicate
_pate_ of his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering
farewell touch of the connoisseur's fingers. Edmund was trying to secure
for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or
two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things
ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse. Edmund was quite
ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully
conscious of its quality and its duration. For the next few weeks he
would be welcomed with enthusiasm--and next year?

But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing
air--something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station
on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or
Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey.

Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain
unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a
pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fair _debutante_.
The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute
discomfort.

"Keep your veil out of the way," her mother warned her.

"I've had two dreadful pulls already; I'm sure my feathers are quite
crooked. Oh! mother, there's Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether
they are crooked. You never know."

"I could see if you would let me get in front of you," murmured her
mother.

"But you can't possibly in this crowd. Oh! how d'ye do, Sir Edmund