Jean Jacques Rousseau certainly made a pretence of doing so, but we read his incomplete memorials with a solemn wink and our tongue in our cheek. His dissipations and weaknesses, which he parades with such an ostentation of candour, he knows are not such as to bring down any great obloquy. Perhaps there is philosophy at the foundation of such an attitude on the part of society at large. An absolute ingenuousness on the subject of our failings might breed too broad a tolerance to suit the present views of humanity. I myself have no intention of admitting the public into the inner sanctuary where dwell my most esoteric emotions. The philosopher wisely avoids the company of those who, indifferent to the opportunities of learning, are ready to practise the habits of street urchins at a sight foreign to the daily life of the streets. Jean Jacques’ drama was always legitimate. Lady Pebworth undoubtedly was the victim of a great passion. Fortunately, she was possessed of a lord and master who was of an unsuspicious nature, otherwise I am afraid that in spite of all my discretion she would have landed me in the Divorce Court. The Peeress and the stockbroker’s clerk would have made a meal for many a prurient appetite. My income was three hundred pounds a year, more or less, and with the instincts of my race I had begun to speculate in a safe, quiet sort of way. I made no boast of the nearness of my relation to the Gascoyne family in such society as I obtained entrance to. I was anxious for the matter to remain unknown. I woke one morning to read in the social intelligence that Lady Gascoyne had been safely delivered of a son. The news was not the shock it might have been, as I had known for some time that she was in an interesting condition. The child would have to be removed as well as his father. It was a task that might well tax the ingenuity of any man. I thought the matter over carefully, day after day. I knew their house, which overlooked the Green Park, and sat for hours gazing at the windows as if they might be expected to furnish inspiration. Lord Gascoyne was now twenty-six years of age. Without being in any way a prig—in fact, he was a man of some gallantry—he had a great sense of his responsibilities, and was leaving the Guards in order to manage his huge estates the better. He and his wife were little heard of. Despite the fact of her American birth, she was the genuine great lady as opposed to the pinchbeck imposition. Her happiness was not measured by the amount of social noise she could make. Everything about her and her husband was correct, and with the exception of the extreme good looks of both probably somewhat dull.