Claude was a poet; when he forgot this fact he was also an excellent fellow. His affectations ended with his talk. In appearance he was distinctly desirable. He had long, clean limbs, a handsome, shaven, mild-eyed face, and dark hair as short as another's. He would have made an admirable Duke. Mr. Sellwood looked up a little sharply from his dazzling new golf-ball. "Why go to town at all?" said he. "Well, the truth is, I have been in a false position all these months," replied Claude, forgetting his poetry and becoming natural at once. "I want to get out of it without a day's unnecessary delay. This thing must be made public." The statesman considered. "I suppose it must," said he, judicially. "Undoubtedly," said Lady Caroline, looking from Olivia to Claude. "The sooner the better." "Not at all," said the Home Secretary. "It has kept nearly a year. Surely it can keep another week? Look here, my good fellow. I come down here expressly to play golf with you, and you want to bunker me in the very house! I take it for the week for nothing else, and you want to desert me the very first morning. You shan't do either, so that's all about it." "You're a perfect tyrant!" cried Lady Caroline. "I'm ashamed of you, George; and I hope Claude will do exactly as he likes. _I_ shall be sorry enough to lose him, goodness knows!" "So shall I," said Olivia simply. Lady Caroline shuddered. "Look at the day!" cried Mr. Sellwood, jumping up with his pink face glowing beneath his virile silver hair. "Look at the sea! Look at the sand! Look at the sea-breeze lifting the very carpet under our feet! Was there ever such a day for golf?" Claude wavered visibly. "Come on," said Mr. Sellwood, catching up his clubs. "I'm awfully sorry for you, my boy. But come on!" "You will have to give in, Claude," said Olivia, who loved her father. Lady Caroline shrugged her shoulders. "Of course," said she, "I hope he will; still I don't think our own selfish considerations should detain him against his better judgment." "I am eager to see Cripps's partners," said Claude vacillating. "They may know more about it." "And solicitors are such trying people," remarked Lady Caroline sympathetically; "one always does want to see them personally, to know what they really mean." "That's what I feel," said Claude. "But what on earth has he to consult them about?" demanded the Home Secretary. "Everything will keep--except the golf. Besides, my dear fellow, you are perfectly safe in the hands of Maitland, Hollis, Cripps and Company. A fine steady firm, and yet pushing too. I recollect they were the first solicitors in London--" "Were!" said his wife significantly. "To supply us with typewritten briefs, my love. Now there is little else. In such hands, my dear Claude, your interests are quite undramatically safe." "Still," said Claude, "it's an important matter; and I am, after all, for the moment, the head of--"