_First, before your delivery of the word ‘waddle,’ I almost broke down. I never could have believed that so much withering contempt could be compressed into so homely a dissyllable. Secondly, I never missed one of your thrusts; they were superb. Finally, never to my dying day shall I know how, when first you were standing by the table, I resisted the temptation to take you in my arms. Before we got down to it, I mean. Nell, it—was—irresistible. . . . Yet, I came through. Truly, ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.’_ _Crispin._ As her husband came in that evening— “Well, my darling,” cried Eleanor, “what d’you know?” “Little enough, old lady. I lost the mare, but Madge and Crispin were there, and they helped me home. They want us to dine to-morrow. Will you be fit?” Eleanor sat up in bed. “I’ld love to,” she said. “But d’you think we possibly can? I’ve put the Festivals off.” “Good Heavens, yes. I mean, they’re practically relatives, aren’t they—Crispin and Madge?” “Practically,” said Eleanor. “And much—much more intelligent.” SUSAN SUSAN Nicholas John Kilmuir, Duke of Culloden, turned his letter about. Presently he fell into a reverie. He was a quiet, good-looking man a short thirty-six years old. As luck would have it, he looked an aristocrat and perhaps because of this, was seldom recognized. His features were fine and clean-cut, his shoulders square, his head well set on. He was tall, moved perfectly, rode as though he were part of his horse. His gentle brown eyes and pleasant voice, above all, his steady, grave smile, made many friends. In France, his men had reverenced him as a god. His tenantry did not reverence him, because reverence was not among their faculties, but the bluntest crofter would have died for him as a matter of course. Culloden understood this devotion and valued it as it deserved. He spent ten months of the year at Ruth Castle and full four-fifths of his income upon his estate. And since in this world much is expected of a duke, the remaining fifth had to be gingerly expended. Thanks to his loyalty to his own, Culloden was a comparatively poor man. He could not, for instance, afford to keep a car. . . . At the present moment he was rather awkwardly placed. His operation had been an expensive business. To judge by the surgeon’s fee-book, dukes’ appendices were twice as refractory as those of commoners. Again, his bill at the nursing-home had been worthy of his rank. More. He was to have convalesced upon an old friend’s steam-yacht: then at the last moment his host had fallen sick and the cruise had been cancelled. Staying at his Club in St. James’s, Culloden, who was really hard up and had been medically forbidden to return to the isolation of Ruth for at least six weeks, did not know what to do.