“I’ve only said so once,” I answered, keeping my temper by a violent effort of self-control, “and it’s perfectly true.” I think there must have been something in my voice that warned them to desist, for the subject was allowed to drop. After tea we adjourned to the school-room. Sibella’s appetite for sweets was insatiable, and she took the most comfortable seat by the fire and proceeded to finish the box of chocolates I had brought her. “Do you like sweets?” I heard Lionel ask. He was sitting by her side. She handed him the box and he helped himself. “Awfully.” Sibella’s English was extremely slipshod. “I’ll send you some. What kind do you like best?” “Chocolate nougat.” “Very well. I’ll send you a much bigger box than that.” Sibella laughed appreciatively. “That will be jolly of you,” she said, perfectly aware that I could hear. She was evidently entirely dazzled by her new admirer, but was too much a born flirt to let me go even if I had had the least intention of retiring from the contest. Just before I left the house she sidled up to me. “You’re not angry, are you, Israel?” I made a faint attempt at a smile as I answered: “Angry? Of course not. Why should I be?” Finding me inclined to fence, she assumed her most childish treble. “I don’t know, I’m sure, only you have been looking so dreadfully cross.” I very nearly shook her. Lionel Holland left the house a few minutes before I did. Grahame walked with me as far as the gate. “I say, Israel, what’s that about your being a lord some day?” “Nothing. I don’t want to go into the matter. Everybody is so beastly rude about it.” “Is it true?” “Of course it is. I’ll show you the papers if you like.” “I don’t want that. If you say it’s true, of course I believe you.” But I was secretly determined that Grahame should see the papers, and I took the earliest opportunity of showing them to him, for I knew that though he liked me too much to say that he disbelieved me, he felt that there must be a mistake somewhere. I explained the whole thing to him and showed him our genealogical tree. I fancy he was more surprised than he appeared to be, for although he had always been very kind to me there had been just the faintest suspicion of patronage in his manner. It was perhaps only natural. A semi-Hebrew lad, in humble circumstances, with no prospects to speak of, was not in the ordinary course of things the most natural companion for the son of a successful city merchant.