"There may be something in what Olivia says," remarked the Home Secretary. "The mistake may have been made at the other end. It would bear talking over on the links." Claude shook his head again. "We have no reason to suppose there has been a mistake at all, Mr. Sellwood. Cripps is not the kind of man to make mistakes; and I can swear to my code. The word means, 'Duke found--I sail with him at once.'" "An Australian Duke!" exclaimed Olivia. "A blackamoor, no doubt," said Lady Caroline with conviction. "Your kinsman, in any case," said Claude Lafont, laughing; "and my cousin; and the head of the family from this day forth." "It was madness!" cried Lady Caroline softly. "Simple madness--but then all you poets _are_ mad! Excuse me, Claude, but you remind me of the Lafont blood in my own veins--you make it boil. I feel as if I never could forgive you! To turn up your nose at one of the oldest titles in the three kingdoms; to think twice about a purely hypothetical heir at the antipodes; and actually to send out your solicitor to hunt him up! If that was not Quixotic lunacy, I should like to know what is?" The Right Honourable George Sellwood took a new golf-ball from his pocket, and bowed his white head mournfully as he stripped off the tissue paper. "My dear Lady Caroline, _noblesse oblige_--and a man must do his obvious duty," he heard Claude saying, in his slightly pedantic fashion. "Besides, I should have cut a very sorry figure had I jumped at the throne, as it were, and sat there until I was turned out. One knew there _had_ been an heir in Australia; the only thing was to find out if he was still alive; and Cripps has done so. I'm bound to say I had given him up. Cripps has written quite hopelessly of late. He must have found the scent and followed it up during the last six weeks; but in another six he will be here to tell us all about it--and we shall see the Duke. Meanwhile, pray don't waste your sympathies upon _me_. To be perfectly frank, this is in many ways a relief to me--I am only sorry it has come now. You know my tastes; but I have hitherto found it expedient to make a little secret of my opinions. Now, however, there can be no harm in my saying that they are not entirely in harmony with the hereditary principle. You hold up your hands, dear Lady Caroline, but I assure you that my seat in the Upper Chamber would have been a seat of conscientious thorns. In fact I have been in a difficulty, ever since my grandfather's death, which I am very thankful to have removed. On the other hand, I love my--may I say my art? And luckily I have enough to cultivate the muse on, at all events, the best of oatmeal; so I am not to be pitied. A good quatrain, Olivia, is more to me than coronets; and the society of my literary friends is dearer to my heart than that of all the peers in Christendom."