Its laws were simple, mainly these: never be afraid; never chaffer with money nor earn it in any way, nor mingle in trade; never play false in your games or your bets; always be courteous to your inferiors and to women; never take insolence from any one, even the King; seek out danger and the company of your equals; never take up money once you have put it down; smile when you win and laugh when you lose; never speak of your loves nor toast an actress at your club. My lord had never broken these laws: he did not put this to his credit; he took them as naturally as clean linen and neat table manners, but perhaps in the casting up of his worthless life they might be set against the black length of his wicked record, as some poor palliative. There was something else my lord could claim, a personal quality this and peculiar to himself: he was tender to animals and anything weak that came his way. He could not have turned a step aside to seek out the poor or miserable, but when they crossed his path he was lavish. And no bird or beast had ever suffered through him; he had never lent the brilliance of his presence to any baiting or cock-fighting or bull-fight. This, too, might be set to my lord’s account, but there was little else. Yet he was lovable; he had always been lovable. People who knew him and scorned him still cared for him; he had been caressed by Charles Edward in genuine affection and liked by King George. Perhaps because he was so utterly soulless and made no pretence of being other than he was, because he was so entirely frank in his passionate capacity for happiness, in his beautiful gaiety he attracted those who were themselves divided in their aims and too timid to crown their own vices as he crowned his, for his fascination was more than merely physical and the attraction of exquisite manners. He was lovable now; even after his long exile from the splendours of St. James, even in his worn clothes, even marred by illness and weariness, he carried with him something that was wholly pleasing, not in the least suggestive of the shameful, unlovely things with which his name was branded. He was reviewing the final adventure of his life with no changed sense of values, no blurred outlook. The near presence of death did not alter his opinion in one jot on any particular nor confuse his estimate nor awaken new feeling; he must have satisfied, in some way, the purposes for which he had been born, to be so serene, so content on the eve of the complete end.