“What he hasn't tried wouldn't be worthy trying,” Tembarom answered cheerfully. “Sometimes it seems like a shame to waste it. I've got so I know how to start him when he doesn't know I'm doing it. I tell you, he's fine. Gentlemanly--that's his way, you know. High-toned friend that just happens to know of a good thing and thinks enough of you in a sort of reserved way to feel like it's a pity not to give you a chance to come in on the ground floor, if you've got the sense to see the favor he's friendly enough to do you. It's such a favor that it'd just disgust a man if you could possibly turn it down. But of course you're to take it or leave it. It's not to his interest to push it. Lord, no! Whatever you did his way is that he'd not condescend to say a darned word. High-toned silence, that's all.” The Duke of Stone was chuckling very softly. His chuckles rather broke his words when he spoke. “By--by--Jove!” he said. “You--you do see it, don't you? You do see it.” Tembarom nursed his knee comfortably. “Why,” he said, “it's what keeps me up. You know a lot more about me than any one else does, but there's a whole raft of things I think about that I couldn't hang round any man's neck. If I tried to hang them round yours, you'd know that I would be having a hell of a time here, if I'd let myself think too much. If I didn't see it, as you call it, if I didn't see so many things, I might begin to get sorry for myself.” There was a pause of a second. “Gee!” he said, “Gee! this not hearing a thing about Ann!--” “Good Lord! my dear fellow,” the duke said hastily, “I know. I know.” Tembarom turned and looked at him. “You've been there,” he remarked. “You've been there, I bet.” “Yes, I've been there,” answered the duke. “I've been there--and come back. But while it's going on--you have just described it. A man can have a hell of a time.” “He can,” Tembarom admitted unreservedly. “He's got to keep going to stand it. Well, Strangeways gives me some work to do. And I've got Palliser. He's a little sunbeam.” A man-servant approaching to suggest a possible need of hot tea started at hearing his grace break into a sudden and plainly involuntary crow of glee. He had not heard that one before either. Palliser as a little sunbeam brightening the pathway of T. Tembarom, was, in the particular existing circumstances, all that could be desired of fine humor. It somewhat recalled the situation of the “Ladies” of the noble houses of Pevensy, Talchester, and Stone unconsciously passing in review for the satisfaction of little Miss Hutchinson. Tembarom laughed a little himself, but he went on with a sort of seriousness,