But with Algernon the case was widely different, and he knew it. He had ventured to speak to Lord Seely about his prospects, and to ask that nobleman's "advice." But Lord Seely had not seemed able to offer any advice which it was practicable to follow. Indeed, how should he have done so, seeing that he was ignorant of most of the material facts of the case? He knew in a general way that young Ancram (Algernon had come to be called so in the Seely household) was poor; but between Lord Seely's conception of the sort of poverty which might pinch a well-born young gentleman, who always appeared in the neatest-fitting shoes and freshest of gloves, and the reality of Algernon's finances, there was a wide discrepancy. Algernon had indeed talked freely, and with much appearance of frankness, about his life in Whitford; but it may be doubted whether Lord Seely, or his wife either--although she, doubtless, came nearer to the truth in her imaginings on the subject--at all realised such facts as that Mrs. Errington had no maid to attend on her; that her lodgings cost her eighteen shillings a week; and that the smell of cheese from the shop below was occasionally a source of discomfort in her only sitting-room. With Lord Seely Algernon had made himself a great favourite, and the proof of it was, that my lord actually thought about him when he was absent; and one day said to his wife, "I wish, Belinda, that we could do something for Ancram." "Do something for him! I think we do a great deal for him. He has the run of the house, and I introduce him right and left. And he is always asked to sing when we have people." "That latter looks rather like his doing something for us, I think." "Not at all. It's a great advantage for a young fellow in his position to be brought forward, and allowed to show off his little gifts in that way." "He is wasting his time. I wish we could get him something to do." "I am sure you have plenty of claims on you that come before him." "I--I did speak to the Duke of Blazonville about him the other day," said my lord, with the slightest hesitation in the world. The Duke of Blazonville was in the cabinet, and had been a colleague of Lord Seely's years ago. "What on earth made you do that, Valentine? You know very well that the next thing the duke has to give I particularly want for Reginald." "Oh, but what I should ask for young Ancram would be something at which your nephew Reginald would probably----" "Turn up his nose?" "Something which Reginald would not care about taking." "Reginald wouldn't go abroad, except to Italy. Nor, indeed, anywhere in Italy but to Naples." "Exactly. Whether the duke would consider that he was particularly serving the interests of diplomacy by sending Reginald to Naples, I don't know. But, at all events, Ancram could not interfere with that project." "Serving----? Nonsense! The duke would do it to oblige me. As to Ancram, I have latterly had a kind of plan in my head about Ancram."