“I’m sure she would. I’ll go and ask her,” and poor Lord Caerleon went away thoroughly puzzled. Hitherto nothing had ever interrupted the perfect understanding between Philippa and himself, but now he was realising miserably that his little daughter had become a woman, and Lord Caerleon had always confessed that he did not understand women. “Mansfield,” said Usk abruptly, when he and his friend were leaving the Consulate in company a little later, “that idiot is after Philippa again.” “What, that Thracian beast?” Mansfield’s language was far from choice, but he was not without provocation. “Well, your father will soon kick him out.” “That’s what I thought, but there’s no chance of that now. She has taken time to consider her answer, and we know what that means. I thought I’d tell you myself, before--before you could hear it from any one else.” Mansfield gasped, and Usk went on hurriedly, “I wouldn’t have believed it, but the fellow told me himself. Perhaps it’s a lie.” “No fear!” was the sternly hopeless answer. “What would be the good, when a word with your father would put you right at once? She has been over-persuaded.” “Yes, I know how it is. He has got round her with the notion that it’s her duty to sacrifice herself to him for the sake of his rotten kingdom, like a girl in a book. I’m awfully sorry, Mansfield--sick, too.” Mansfield answered only by an inarticulate grunt. “I wouldn’t have believed Phil was such an owl,” went on her brother. “Every one knows that sort of arrangement is bound to end in an awful smash. But never say die, old man; she may chuck him yet.” “Not she,” returned Mansfield, with a fixed despair. CHAPTER XXIII. MAN AND WIFE. “This is the irony of fate!” said Mansfield to himself the next morning. The English mail had come in, and the city postman, going his leisurely rounds on his white donkey, was engaged in distributing the letters it brought. A few minutes before, he had placed in Mansfield’s hands that which should have been his passport to paradise. The Right Honourable Geoffrey Forfar wrote to say that one of his secretaries had accepted an appointment under Government, and he had much pleasure in fulfilling his promise with regard to the vacant post. Would Mansfield kindly arrange to take up his new duties as soon as his present employer could spare him?