It was of course no trifle of a shock, but its victim's sensations gave him strong reason to hope, as he rolled over, that no bones were broken. The following servants were on the spot almost at once, and took the pony's head. The young man helped the duke to his feet and dusted him with masterly dexterity. He did not know he was dusting a duke, and he would not have cared if he had. “Hello,” he said, “you're not hurt. I can see that. Thank the Lord! I don't believe you've got a scratch.” His grace felt a shade shaky, and he was slightly pale, but he smiled in a way which had been celebrated forty years earlier, and the charm of which had survived even rheumatic gout. “Thank you. I'm not hurt in the least. I am the Duke of Stone. This isn't really a call. It isn't my custom to arrive in this way. May I address you as my preserver, Mr. Temple Barholm?” CHAPTER XXIV Upon the terrace, when he was led up the steps, stood a most perfect little elderly lady in a state of agitation much greater than his own or his rescuer's. It was an agitation as perfect in its femininity as she herself was. It expressed its kind tremors in the fashion which belonged to the puce silk dress and fine bits of collar and undersleeve the belated gracefulness of which caused her to present herself to him rather as a figure cut neatly from a book of the styles he had admired in his young manhood. It was of course Miss Alicia, who having, with Tembarom, seen the galloping pony from a window, had followed him when he darted from the room. She came forward, looking pale with charming solicitude. “I do so hope you are not hurt,” she exclaimed. “It really seemed that only divine Providence could prevent a terrible accident.” “I am afraid that it was more grotesque than terrible,” he answered a shade breathlessly. “Let me make you acquainted with the Duke of Stone, Miss Alicia,” Tembarom said in the formula of Mrs. Bowse's boarders on state occasions of introduction. “Duke, let me make you acquainted, sir, with my--relation--Miss Alicia Temple Barholm.” The duke's bow had a remote suggestion of almost including a kissed hand in its gallant courtesy. Not, however, that Early Victorian ladies had been accustomed to the kissing of hands; but at the period when he had best known the type he had daily bent over white fingers in Continental capitals. “A glass of wine,” Miss Alicia implored. “Pray let me give you a glass of wine. I am sure you need it very much.” He was taken into the library and made to sit in a most comfortable easy-chair. Miss Alicia fluttered about him with sympathy still delicately tinged with alarm. How long, how long, it had been since he had been fluttered over! Nearly forty years. Ladies did not flutter now, and he remembered that it was no longer the fashion to call them “ladies.” Only the lower-middle classes spoke of “ladies.” But he found himself mentally using the word again as he watched Miss Alicia.