ace and forehead that surmounted
such a tower of strength.

"I was in Heidelberg myself--a student," said he, his face lighting up
with coming reminiscences, "but that was long before you were born,
fifty years ago."

"I fancy it is little changed," said Claudius.

"I would like to go back to the Badischer Hof. I remember once--" but he
broke off short and turned to the Countess, and sat down beside her. He
knew all her people in America and her husband's people abroad. He
immediately began telling her a story of her grandmother, with a _verve_
and graphic spirit that enchanted Margaret, for she liked clever old
men. Besides he is not old. It is not so long since--well, it is a long
story. However, in less than one minute the assembled guests were
listening to the old-time tale of Margaret's ancestress, and the waiter
paused breathless on the threshold to hear the end, before he announced
dinner.

There are two very different ways of dining--dining with Mr. Bellingham,
and dining without him. But for those who have dined with him, all
other prandial arrangements are an empty sham. At least so Claudius said
to Margaret in an aside, when they got to the fruit. And Margaret, who
looked wonderfully beautiful with a single band of gold through her
black hair, laughed her assent, and said it was hopeless for the men of
this day to enter the lists against the veterans of the _ancien regime_.
And Claudius was not in the least hurt by the comparison, odious though
it would have been to Mr. Barker, had he been there. Claudius had plenty
of vanity, but it did not assume the personal type. Some people call a
certain form of vanity pride. It is the same thing on a larger scale.
Vanity is to pride what nervousness is to nerve, what morbid conscience
is to manly goodness, what the letter of the law is to the spirit.

Before they rose from the table, Mr. Bellingham proposed that they
should adjourn to Newport on the following day. He said it was too early
to be in New York and that Newport was still gay; at all events, the
weather promised well, and they need not stay more than twenty-four
hours unless they pleased. The proposition was carried unanimously, the
Duke making a condition that he should be left in peace and not
"entertained in a handsome manner by the _elite_ of our Newport
millionaires"--as the local papers generally have it. Lady Victoria
would not have objected to the operation of "being entertained" by
Newport, fo