fellow were dead, how the devil could he say he was? Do be
logical, Seraph."

"Get up!" cried the Seraph with a deafening rataplan, and a final dash
of his colossal stature into the chamber. "We've all done breakfast; the
traps are coming round; you'll be an hour behind time at the meet."

Bertie lifted his eyes with plaintive resignation from the Demirep's
yellow-papered romance.

"I'm really in an interesting chapter: Aglae has just had a marquis kill
his son, and two brothers kill each other in the Bois, about her, and
is on the point of discovering a man she's in love with to be her own
grandfather; the complication is absolutely thrilling," murmured Beauty,
whom nothing could ever "thrill"--not even plunging down the Matterhorn,
losing "long odds in thou'" over the Oaks, or being sunned in the eyes
of the fairest woman of Europe.

The Seraph laughed, and tossed the volume straight to the other end of
the chamber.

"Confound you, Beauty; get up!"

"Never swear, Seraph; not ever so mildly," yawned Cecil, "it's gone out,
you know; only the cads and the clergy can damn one nowadays; it's
such bad style to be so impulsive. Look! You have broken the back of my
Demirep!"

"You deserve to break the King's back over the first cropper," laughed
the Seraph. "Do get up!"

"Bother!" sighed the victim, raising himself with reluctance, while the
Seraph disappeared in a cloud of Turkish.

Neither Bertie's indolence nor his insouciance was assumed; utter
carelessness was his nature, utter impassability was his habit, and he
was truly for the moment loath to leave his bed, his coffee, and his
novel; he must have his leg over the saddle, and feel the strain on his
arms of that "pulling" pace with which the King always went when once he
settled into his stride, before he would really think about winning.

The hunting breakfasts of our forefathers and of our present squires
found no favor with Bertie; a slice of game and a glass of Curacoa were
all he kept the drag waiting to swallow; and the four bays going at
a pelting pace, he and the rest of the Household who were gathered at
Royallieu were by good luck in time for the throw-off of the Quorn,
where the hero o' the Blue Ribbon was dancing impatiently under Willon's
hand, scenting the fresh, keen, sunny air, and knowing as well what all
those bits of scarlet straying in through field and lane, gate and
gap, meant, as well as though the merry notes of the master's horn wer