[Illustration: THE HOMAGE WAS DULY PAID] TALES OF TWO PEOPLE BY ANTHONY HOPE AUTHOR OF “THE DOLLY DIALOGUES,” “THE KING’S MIRROR,” ETC. WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY A. H. BUCKLAND SECOND EDITION METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in book form_ _September 1907_ _Second Edition_ _September 1907_ CONTENTS PAGE HELENA’S PATH 1 MRS THISTLETON’S PRINCESS 102 THE NECESSARY RESOURCES 129 MISS GLADWIN’S CHANCE 149 THE PRINCE CONSORT 174 WHAT WAS EXPECTED OF MISS CONSTANTINE 183 SLIM-FINGERED JIM 207 THE GREY FROCK 220 FOREORDAINED 234 PRUDENCE AND THE BISHOP 245 THE OPENED DOOR 253 LOVE’S LOGIC 258 LA MORT À LA MODE 267 THE RIDDLE OF COUNTESS RUNA 275 THE LADY AND THE FLAGON 288 THE DUKE’S ALLOTMENT 310 HELENA’S PATH CHAPTER I AMBROSE, LORD LYNBOROUGH Common opinion said that Lord Lynborough ought never to have had a peerage and forty thousand a year; he ought to have had a pound a week and a back bedroom in Bloomsbury. Then he would have become an eminent man; as it was, he turned out only a singularly erratic individual. So much for common opinion. Let no more be heard of its dull utilitarian judgments! There are plenty of eminent men--at the moment, it is believed, no less than seventy Cabinet and ex-Cabinet Ministers (or thereabouts)--to say nothing of Bishops, Judges, and the British Academy--and all this in a nook of the world! (And the world too is a point!) Lynborough was something much more uncommon; it is not, however, quite easy to say what. Let the question be postponed; perhaps the story itself will answer it.