"Why, there goes that extraordinary fellow Stoneman!" I exclaimed suddenly, to change the subject. "What a first-rate horse he always rides! But there is something I ought to tell you about that great Stockbroker. I have not told the Governor yet, because I was not meant to do so, and must not, without the man's consent. But you ought to know it, and he would not object to that." "What has he discovered? I have often thought that men, who fall into the thick of humanity, ought to get their minds into an extremely active state; like mariners straining their eyes to discover--" "The Gold Coast. There is nothing else they care for. But there I am wronging Jackson Stoneman. He is a man of the world, if there ever was one; and yet he is taken above the world, by love." "Love of what?" asked my brother, who was sometimes hard upon people who despised all the things he cared for. "Love of gold? Love of rank? Love of dainty feeding? Love of his own fat self perhaps?" "He is not fat. He is scarcely round enough. He is one of the most active men in the kingdom. There are very few things that he cannot do. And now he is deeply and permanently in love--" "With filthy lucre. If there is anything I hate, it is the scorn of humanity that goes with that." Harold, in a lofty mood, began to strap up the trunk that was to save mankind. "If filthy lucre means our Grace," I said with much emphasis, for it was good to floor him, "you have hit the mark. But our Grace has not a farthing." I very nearly added--"thanks to you." But it would have been cruel, and too far beyond the truth. "Ridiculous!" he answered, trying not to look surprised, though I knew that I had got him there. "Why, his grandfather kept a shoe-shop." "That is a vile bit of lying gossip. But even if it were so, the love of humanity should not stop short of their shoes. I am afraid you are a snob, Harold, with all your vast ideas." "I am a little inclined to that opinion myself," he answered very cordially. "But come, this is very strange news about Grace. Has she any idea of the honour done her?" "Not the smallest. So far as I know at least. And I think it is better that she should not know. Just at present, I mean, until he has had time." "But surely, George, you would not encourage such a thing. Putting aside the man's occupation, which may be very honourable if he is so himself, what do we know of his character, except that he gives himself airs, and is rather ostentatious?" "He gives himself no airs. What you call ostentation is simply his generosity. You forget that in right of his wealth he stands in the place we have lost through our poverty. That makes it a delicate position for him, especially in his behaviour to us. And do what he will, we should scarcely do our duty to ourselves, unless we made the worst of it."