"That's all right," Lord Sydney laughed heartily. "We had the duel this morning. I was Dymoke's second, and young Browne for Trooper Ali. We seconds arranged the detail--swords at ten paces." "But," said Miss Temple, primly, "swords won't reach!" "No," Sydney shook his head, "they won't. You should have heard our warriors cursing! I'm afraid my revered father has graver business than that to worry our Lady." "Oh," chirped Mrs. Osbourne, "and my Jack said there was a dreadful rumour on the Stock Exchange. They say that monster at Lyonesse is behaving disgracefully. Yes, he has made horrible threats about the thingum-jig, the what d'ye call 'em." "The price of gold?" Sydney was exchanging glances with Miss Temple. "That's it," said the governess; "that must be it. You know how strongly I disapprove of profane books. This morning my poor child was fretting herself to death about Mayne's 'Gold and Lyonesse.' I took it away from her. What a shameful thing that Margaret should be crying over a book like that! Why should a godless man like Mr. Brand be clothed with such frightful power? _Let him put his mouth in the dust_. Now why are such things permitted?" "Miss Temple," said Sydney, "can you remember back to the Black Decade? But no, you must have been a mere child then." "A child? My dear James, I was a grown woman. We were so poor that we had to give up crinolines, and come down to two-yard skimps. The country was desolate, _the rampart and the wall languished together_, and coals were so high that we had to use briquettes. Trade was going all to pieces, and to keep up the Fleet, they actually taxed excursion tickets. My father was ruined by the crash in Centralias, and I went out as a governess." "But Lyonesse," said Sydney, "has made everything all right. We were never so prosperous." "My dear James, I am still a governess. Lyonesse? It was a moor in those days, _and the foxes walked upon it_. Yes, there was a very frousty old man who smelt of tobacco, in a shed where Lyonesse stands now, and a rumour got about that he could take common water and make it into gold. That was John Brand I. Yes, the workshop was very smelly, I remember; but think of it, pet, he was making solid blocks of gold as if they were only bricks." The old lady was very busy at her lace cushion. "Yes, my father took me to see him just when I got over the mumps--most unbecoming, dear, with red flannel wraps. His son, John Brand II., was a fat man with a wart on his nose, and oh, such manners! He was the one who brought hundreds of tons of gold to the Mint, so that the price went down, and all the mines had to close, and lots of people were ruined. Russia went bankrupt; that was in 1940, and all the really nice people there had their heads chopped off in the Red Terror. That was an unspeakable mercy, because, you see, they had to leave off invading India.