The viscount in his disdain looked particularly like a camel; but he gave no answer. “Well,” said Tuke, “being here, I should like to ask you a question. Have you acquainted our friends of my real title?” “Oh, curse it, no!” said the lord. “What the devil’s it got to do with me?” “That’s right. I have my reasons for the change, of course, and I’ll ask you to respect them.” “I give myself no cursed concern about it. I don’t know that it makes much difference,” cried my lord irritably. “You seem to think I’ve no affairs but yours to consider.” “You’ll not be offensive, I know,” said Tuke. “It’s not your way.” The other sniffed and preceded the visitor into the drawing-room. He, the latter, pondered profoundly on his short journey thither, and steeled himself against probabilities. But here he was agreeably and quite surprisingly flattered. Miss Royston received him with a charming _naïveté_ of welcome, and seemed to encourage him to assume the _rôle_ of a familiar neighbour. “Are you not astonished to see us back so soon?” she said. “You know how eagerly I grasp at any excuse for a return to the country. Through all the clash and sparkle of town I hear the birds singing and see the lambs frisking in the meadows.” “They’re not so much as dropped in January,” said Dunlone seriously. Miss Angela blushed. “Mr. Tuke will understand me,” she said, with a plaintive glance at that gentleman. He coughed and bowed, and was altogether wholly perplexed as to the nature of her present attitude towards him. “And what was the excuse you grasped at?” said he. She made a little _moue_ with her lips--she was amazingly confidential--and shrugged her pretty shoulders at the oblivious viscount. “_He_ was returning to Cornwall,” she whispered, “and almost drove us home that he might make a half-way house of ‘Chatters.’ I vow we were forced to come.” She was delightfully secretive. There was no mention of my lord’s tailor. Almost Tuke misdoubted that Dunlone had kept his aristocratic faith with him. “Well,” said he, “we’re all beholden to him anyhow, whatever was his motive.” She lifted her shoulders again at that. Her expression said plainly, “His motive? You know as well as I do, sir, what is the lure to any male creature in this house.” “He is not a first example of _savoir vivre_,” she whispered; “but, if he is a cub, he is a tiger-cub.” “Does that recommend him in your eyes?” “What hypocrisy to pretend it does not in any. He may feed like a wolf, but he hath the royal coat, and his stripes shall cover a multitude of sins.” “Or rib a whole vessel of emptiness.” “No doubt,” she said, with a light laugh. He sat silent some moments. Was she sincere, he pondered, or could it be possible she merely sought to play him into check with this insolent pawn?