one must ever read what was really passing in his
soul, and when he felt, it was the more difficult to conceal, he
reasoned.

"I am not a snob, my friend," he said, after a mouthful of salad. "I
have no worship for aristocracy in the abstract; I am a student, a
rather careful student of systems and their results, and, incidentally,
a breeder of thoroughbred live stock, too, which helps one's
conclusions: and above all I am an interested watcher of the progress of
evolution."

"You are abominably clever," said Lord Tancred.

"Think of your uncle, the Duke of Glastonbury," the financier went on.
"He fulfills his duties in every way, a munificent landlord, and a
sound, level-headed politician: what other country or class could
produce such as he?"

"Oh, the Duke's all right," his nephew agreed. "He is a bit hard up like
a number of us at times, but he keeps the thing going splendidly, and my
cousin Ethelrida helps him. She is a brick. But you know her, of course,
don't you think so?"

"The Lady Ethelrida seems to me a very perfect young woman," Francis
Markrute said, examining his claret through the light. "I wish I knew
her better. We have few occasions of meeting; she does not go out very
much into general society, as you know."

"Oh, I'll arrange that, if it would interest you. I thought you were
perfectly cynical about and even rather bored with women," Lord Tancred
said.

"I think I told you--was it only yesterday?--that I understood it might
be possible for a woman to count--I have not time for the ordinary
parrot-chatterers one meets. There are three classes of the species
female: those for the body, those for the brain, and those for both. The
last are dangerous. The other two merely occupy certain moods in man.
Fortunately for us the double combination is rare."

Lord Tancred longed to ask under which head Francis Markrute placed his
niece, but, of course, he restrained himself. He, personally, felt sure
she would be of the combination; that was her charm. Yes, as he thought
over things, that was the only really dangerous kind, and he had so
seldom met it! Then his imagination suddenly pictured Laura Highford
with her tiny mouth and pointed teeth. She had a showy little brain,
absolutely no heart, and the senses of a cat or a ferret. What part of
him had she appealed to? Well, thank God, that was over and done with,
and he was perfectly free to make his discoveries in regard to Zara, his
future wife!