rica has turned out to be my
Eldorado. Quite unexpectedly, I must admit, I came in for a considerable
sum of money towards the end of my stay there. I am paying off the
mortgages at Dominey at once, and I want Henry to jot down on paper at
once those few amounts he was good enough to lend me in the old days."

Caroline, Duchess of Worcester, sat perfectly still for a moment with
her mouth open, a condition which was entirely natural but unbecoming.

"And you mean to tell me that you really are Everard Dominey?" she
exclaimed.

"The weight of evidence is rather that way," he murmured.

He moved his chair deliberately a little nearer, took her hand and
raised it to his lips. Her face was perilously near to his. She drew a
little back--and too abruptly.

"My dear Everard," she whispered, "Henry is in the house! Besides--Yes,
I suppose you must be Everard. Just now there was something in your eyes
exactly like his. But you are so stiff. Have you been drilling out there
or anything?"

He shook his head.

"One spends half one's time in the saddle."

"And you are really well off?" she asked again wonderingly.

"If I had stayed there another year," he replied, "and been able to
marry a Dutch Jewess, I should have qualified for Park Lane."

She sighed.

"It's too wonderful. Henry will love having his money back."

"And you?"

She looked positively distressed.

"You've lost all your manners," she complained. "You make love like a
garden rake. You should have leaned towards me with a quiver in your
voice when you said those last two words, and instead of that you look
as though you were sitting at attention, with a positive glint of steel
in your eyes."

"One sees a woman once in a blue moon out there," he pleaded.

She shook her head. "You've changed. It was a sixth sense with you to
make love in exactly the right tone, to say exactly the right thing in
the right manner."

"I shall pick it up," he declared hopefully, "with a little assistance."

She made a little grimace.

"You won't want an old woman like me to assist you, Everard. You'll have
the town at your feet. You'll be able to frivol with musical comedy,
flirt with our married beauties, or--I'm sorry, Everard, I forgot."

"You forgot what?" he asked steadfastly.

"I forgot the tragedy which finally drove you abroad. I forgot your
marriage. Is there any change in your wife?"

"Not much, I am afraid."

"And Mr. Mangan--he thinks that you are sa