“In fact,” continued the young lady, “he professed to be in love with me. Now my aunt, although not insensible to the great position which he offered me (for of course he represented himself as the Duke of Belleville) entertains the opinion that no girl should marry till she is twenty-one. Moreover she considered that the acquaintance was rather short.” “May I ask when you first met the gentleman?” “Last Monday week. So she forbade the marriage. I am myself of an impatient disposition.” “So am I,” observed the Duke of Belleville, and in the interest of the discussion he became so forgetful as to withdraw his feet from the shelter of the table and cross one leg comfortably over the other. “So am I,” he repeated, nodding his head. “I therefore determined to live my own life in my own way----” “I think you said you had been to college?” “Yes, but I had a difference of----” “Quite so. Pray proceed,” said the Duke courteously. “And to run away with my _fiancé_. In pursuance of this plan, I arranged to meet him to-night at his villa at Hampstead. He sent a brougham to fetch me, I made my escape successfully, and the rest you know.” “Pardon me, but up to this point the part played by the flagon which you see on the table before you is somewhat obscure.” “Oh, when you’d gone to pack his things, he took out a curious little instrument--he said he had forgotten his key--and opened the cabinet on the mantelpiece. Then he took out that pretty mug and gave it to me as my wedding present. He told me that it was very valuable, and he would carry it for me himself, but I declared that I must carry it for myself or I wouldn’t go. So he let me. And then you----” “The whole thing is perfectly plain,” declared the Duke with emphasis. “You, madam, have been the victim of a most dastardly and cold-blooded plot. This fellow is a swindler. I daresay he wanted to get hold of you, and thus extort money from your aunt, but his main object was no other than to carry off the famous cup which you see before you--the Queen Bess flagon.” And the Duke, rising to his feet, began to walk up and down in great indignation. “He meant to kill two birds with one stone!” said he, in mingled anger and admiration. “It is pretty,” said the young lady, taking up the flagon. “Oh, what is this figure?” The Duke, perceiving that the lady desired an explanation, came and leant over her chair. She turned her face up to his in innocent eagerness; the Duke could not avoid observing that she had very fine eyes. Without making any comment on the subject, however, he leant a little lower and began to explain the significance of the figure on the Queen Bess flagon. The Duke has been known to say that, in a world so much the sport of chance as ours, there was no reason why he should not have fallen in love with the young lady and offered to make her in very truth what she had dreamed of becoming--the Duchess of Belleville.