"What have you been doing to your face!" asked the Duke. It was a rude question, but Mr. Nape saw nothing more significant in the query than a hint of smut, and searched for his handkerchief. "What have you done with your moustache," asked the Duke reprovingly. Mr. Nape looked his astonishment. "I have never had a moustache," he said haughtily, for he had heard a little titter. "Strange," mused the Duke, "and yet I could have sworn that the last time we met—forgive me, I must have been mistaken." "By the way, Mr. Nape," drawled the tired voice of Hank, "that electric battery you repaired don’t work worth a cent." The great and appalling truth came to Mr. Nape slowly. In a dazed way he managed to reached the outskirts of the throng about his host and sank into a chair. His moustache! the electric battery! he groaned in spirit. "Say, Mr. Nape,"—Hank was by his side—"you’ll keep the matter dark—you know. What you heard this morning—we’ll split the tiara or I’ll toss you for the diamond necklace." Roderick rose with dignity. "Mr. Hankey, you are an American and you cannot understand my feelings, but I consider I have been treated most——" "Mrs. and Miss Terrill," announced the grave man-servant, and Hank lost all interest in Mr. Roderick Nape. He gave a quick glance at the Duke and grinned, for the scarlet-faced young man for the first and last time in his life lost his head and grew incoherent. "Oh, yes, America is a lovely country—close to New York you know, beautiful sunsets every night at 10. I mean fireworks in Madison Square Gardens. Yes, I knew President Lincoln intimately. How do you do, Miss Terrill? this is very pluc—kind of you." Mrs. Terrill has been treated with scant courtesy in these pages, but the part she played in this story is analogous to the part she played in life. She was one of those women who live in the everlasting background—none the worse for that, but no better. The Duke had looked forward to the meeting with a vague dread. When he saw her he experienced a great relief, when she spoke he was grateful. He found an opportunity to speak with her alone. "My daughter has told me," she said simply. "I’m afraid I ought to be more prejudiced against you than I am, and I’m sure you were not looking forward with any eagerness to meet me." His smiling denial she waved aside. She was a pretty woman of fifty. She looked no less, yet she was pretty. For beauty is not of any age, any more than it is of any colour. The Duke with his quick sympathies saw behind the laughter in her eyes the shadow of suffering. He had lived too near to sorrow to mistake its evidence. Secretly, he wondered why this woman with her ready wit and her unquestionable charm had played no greater part in life—for unerringly and instinctively he had estimated her place in the world. She had an embarrassing way of reading one’s thoughts.