“What he hasn’t tried wouldn’t be worth 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.” “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! I’ve 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 seriousness: “There’s one thing sure enough. I’ve got on to it by listening and working out what he would do by what he doesn’t know he says. If he could put the screws on me in any way, he wouldn’t hold back. It’d be all quite polite and gentlemanly, but he’d do it all the same. And he’s dead-sure that everybody’s got something they’d like to hide--or get. That’s what he works things out from.” “Does he think you have something to hide--or get?” the duke inquired, quickly. “He’s sure of it. But he doesn’t know yet whether it’s get or hide. He noses about. Pearson’s seen him. He asks questions and plays he ain’t doing it and ain’t interested, anyhow.”