acquired by a former duke at the instigation of the Regent, who was
his intimate friend, and retained by later generations in mute protest
against the disfiguring edifices which had made a millionaire's highway
of Park Lane. Dominey, who was first scrutinised by an individual in
buff waistcoat and silk hat at the porter's lodge, was interviewed by a
major-domo in the great stone hall, conducted through an extraordinarily
Victorian drawing-room by another myrmidon in a buff waistcoat, and
finally ushered into a tiny little boudoir leading out of a larger
apartment and terminating in a conservatory filled with sweet-smelling
exotics. The Duchess, who was reclining in an easy-chair, held out her
hand, which her visitor raised to his lips. She motioned him to a seat
by her side and once more scrutinised him with unabashed intentness.

"There's something wrong about you, you know," she declared.

"That seems very unfortunate," he rejoined, "when I return to find you
wholly unchanged."

"Not bad," she remarked critically. "All the same, I have changed. I am
not in the least in love with you any longer."

"It was the fear of that change in you," he sighed, "which kept me for
so long in the furthest corners of the world."

She looked at him with a severity which was obviously assumed.

"Look here," she said, "it is better for us to have a perfectly clear
understanding upon one point. I know the exact position of your affairs,
and I know, too, that the two hundred a year which your lawyer has been
sending out to you came partly out of a few old trees and partly out of
his own pocket. How you are going to live over here I cannot imagine,
but it isn't the least use expecting Henry to do a thing for you. The
poor man has scarcely enough pocket money to pay his travelling expenses
when he goes lecturing."

"Lecturing?" Dominey repeated. "What's happened to poor Henry?"

"My husband is an exceedingly conscientious man," was the dignified
reply. "He goes from town to town with Lord Roberts and a secretary,
lecturing on national defence."

"Dear Henry was always a little cranky, wasn't he?" Dominey observed.
"Let me put your mind at rest on that other matter, though, Caroline. I
can assure you that I have come back to England not to borrow money but
to spend it."

His cousin shook her head mournfully. "And a few minutes ago I was
nearly observing that you had lost your sense of humour!"

"I am in earnest," he persisted. "Af