"Nevertheless it's the case." "And do you mean to tell me you were never like that yourself?" "Never in my life." "Well, shoot me dead!" whispered the Duke in his amazement. "It ought not to surprise you," said Claude, in a tone that set the _Times_ shaking in the far corner of the carriage. "It does, though. I can't help it. You're the first I've ever met that could say as much." "Pray let us drop the subject. I prefer to hear no more. You pain me more than I can say!" Claude's flush had deepened; his supersensitive soul was indeed scandalised, and so visibly that an answering flush showed upon the Duke's mahogany features, like an extra coat of polish. "I pain you!" he echoed, dropping his cat. "I'm very sorry then. I am so! I had no intention of doing any such thing. All I wanted was to fly my true flag at once, like, and have done with it. And I've pained you; and you bet I'll go on paining you all the time! How can I help it? I'm not what us back-blockers call a parlour-man, though I may be a Dook; but neither the one nor the other is my fault. You should have let me be in the bush. I was all right there--all right with my hut and my cats. I'd never known anything better. I never knew who I was. What did it matter if I knocked down my cheque when I got full up of the cats and the hut? Nobody thinks anything of that up the bush. The boss used always to take me on again; some day I'll tell you about my old boss; he was the best friend ever I had. A real gentleman, who thought no worse of you so long's it only happened now and then. But see here! It shall never happen again. It didn't matter in the boundary rider, but p'r'aps it might in the Dook. Anyhow I'm strict T T from this moment; that whisky at Dover shall be my last. And I'm darned sorry I pained you, and--and dash it, here's my fist on it for good and all!" It is difficult to say which hand wrung the harder. Claude was not pleased with himself; the conscious lack of some quality, which the other possessed, was afflicting him with a novel and entirely unexpected sense of inferiority. He was as yet unsure what the missing quality was; he hardly suspected it of being a virtue; but it was new to Claude to have these feelings at all. He said not another word upon the embarrassing subject, but fell presently into a train of thought that kept him silent until they steamed into Victoria. There the conquering Cripps was met by his wife and daughters; but Claude managed to get a few more words with him as they were waiting to have the baggage passed. "I like him," said Claude. "So do I," was the reply, "and I know him well." "I like his honesty." "He is honesty itself. I did my best just now to keep him from giving himself away--but that was his deliberate game. Mark you, what he insisted on telling you was quite true; but on the whole he has behaved excellently ever since." "Well, as long as he doesn't confess his sins to everybody he meets!"