"Oh, yes--it can--you could do it--if you wanted to!" "These things have to be done in the proper way," protested the duke. "It isn't that. You--you--don't like Millie!" sobbed Pollyooly, watching the weakening face of the perturbed nobleman with an intent eye over the top of her handkerchief. "You--you--hate her!" "Why, I've never set eyes on her!" cried the duke. "Oh, yes: you do--and it's--it's beastly," sobbed Pollyooly. No duke likes to hear his conduct described as beastly by an angel child--especially when the description happens to be accurate--and the duke ground his teeth. Pollyooly, watching him, sobbed on--louder. The duke gazed at her in a dismal discomfort. He shuffled his feet till the shuffle was almost a dance. Then he said in a feebly soothing tone: "There--there--that'll do." [Illustration: The Duke gazed at her in dismal discomfort] Pollyooly's sobs grew yet louder--heartrending. The duke took a hurried turn up and down the room. Pollyooly, a huddled figure of desperate woe, sobbed on. The duke grabbed at his scrubby little moustache and held on to it firmly. It was no real help. He ground his teeth; he tugged at his moustache; and then in a tone of the last exasperation, he cried: "Oh, hang it all! Stop that infernal howling; and I'll give you the nomination!" Pollyooly softened her sobs a little; the duke flung himself down into the chair before the writing-table, at the other end of the room, and seized pen and paper. "What's the brat's name?" he growled. "Millicent--Saunders," sobbed Pollyooly. The duke wrote the nomination, put it in an envelope, addressed it to the secretary of the Bellingham Home, licked the flap of the envelope with wolfish ferocity, and banged it fast. He came hastily across the room with it to Pollyooly, held it out, and said with even greater ferocity: "Here you are--and--and--much good may it do her!" Pollyooly rose quickly and took it. She could hardly believe her shining eyes. "Oh, thank you, your Grace! Millicent will be so glad!" she cried joyfully. The duke growled in his throat; but in some way Pollyooly's radiant angel face blunted his ferocity. Also it robbed his surrender of its sting. He rang the bell; then opened the smoking-room door for her and bade her good day quite in the manner and tone of an English gentleman. On the threshold, like the well-mannered child she was, she paused to thank him again. When she went out he shut the door quite gently; and by the time he had settled down again in his easy chair, he was feeling truly magnanimous. CHAPTER X POLLYOOLY AND THE LUMP GO TO THE SEASIDE The motor-bus which carried Pollyooly home crawled, to her impatient fancy, no faster than the old horse-bus, so eager was she to pour the news of her success into the ears of Millicent. Millicent, however, after her first joy on hearing that the path which would ultimately lead her to the altar with an empire-builder was open to her, grew sad.