“He said, however, that the things that mattered were not only titles, but looks. He asked how many of us were ‘lookers.’ Don’t be modest, Amabel. Neither you nor Lucy are out of the running,” Beatrice amiably suggested. “There may be a sort of explanation,” Honora put the idea forward somewhat thoughtfully. “Captain Palliser insists that he is much shrewder than he seems. Perhaps he is cautious, and is looking us all over before he commits himself.” “He is a Temple Barholm, after all,” said Gwynedd, with boldness. “He’s rather good-looking. He has the nicest white teeth and the most cheering grin I ever saw, and he’s as ‘rich as grease is,’ as I heard a housemaid say one day. I’m getting quite resigned to his voice, or it is improving, I don’t know which. “But,” added Lady Gwynedd, “he is not going to commit himself to any of us, incredible as it may seem. The one person he stares at sometimes is Joan Fayre, and he only looks at her as if he were curious and wouldn’t object to finding out why she treats him so outrageously. He isn’t annoyed; he’s only curious.” “He’s a likable thing,” said Amabel Grantham. “He’s even rather a dear. I’ve begun to like him myself.” “I hear you are learning to play croquet,” the Duke of Stone remarked to him a day or so later. “How do you like it?” “Lady Gwynedd Talchester is teaching me,” Tembarom answered. “I’d learn to iron shirt-waists if she would give me lessons. She’s one of the two that have dimples,” he added, reflection in his tone. “I guess that’ll count. Shouldn’t you think it would?” “Miss Hutchinson?” queried the duke. Tembarom nodded. “Yes, it’s always her,” he answered without a ray of humor. “I just want to stack ’em up.” “You are doing it,” the duke replied with a slightly twisted mouth. There were, in fact, moments when he might have fallen into fits of laughter while Tembarom was seriousness itself. “I’m doing my stunt, of course, but I like them,” said he. “They’re mighty nice to me when you consider what they’re up against. And these two with the dimples, Lady Gwynedd and Lady Honora, are just peaches.” They were having one of their odd long talks under a particularly splendid copper beech which provided the sheltered out-of-door corner his grace liked best. When they took their seats together in this retreat, it was mysteriously understood that they were settling themselves down to enjoyment of their own, and must not be disturbed. “What dear papa talks to him about, and what he talks about to dear papa,” Lady Celia had more than once murmured in her gently remote, high-nosed way, “I cannot possibly imagine. Sometimes when I have passed them on my way to the croquet lawn I have really seen them both look as absorbed as people in a play. Of course it is very good for papa. It has had quite a marked effect on his digestion. But isn’t it odd!”