"Ah! that’s good." He forced her to meet his eyes, and there was something more than a smile on his face now. "Well, I must go back to my sister.... And I’ll come and call to-morrow if I may.... Jane will expose my wicked deceit doubtless...." "Mad—quite mad," remarked the woman opposite, as he went back to his interrupted dinner. "Morrison, did you say? I knew he wanted to study labour conditions first-hand—why, Heaven knows. He’s got works of his own or something.... But all the Carlakes are mad.... And I’d got a splendid American girl up my sleeve for him...." "Carlake," said Marjorie, a little faintly. "Is that Lord Carlake?" "Of course it is, my dear. That’s Joe Carlake.... Mad as a hatter.... I wonder who the girl is...." _*VI — The Unbroken Line*_ *I* "My dear man, where have you been buried? You don’t seem to know anybody. That’s Bobby Landon, Lord Fingarton’s only son. Just about to pull off _the_ marriage of the season." I accepted the rebuke meekly: a spell of three years in Africa investigating the question of sleeping sickness does almost count as burial. "Oh! is that Lord Landon?" I murmured, glancing across the crowded restaurant at a clean-looking youngster dining with a couple of men. "See—who is he engaged to?" "You win the bag of nuts," laughed my fair informant. "Robert Landon, only son of Earl Fingarton of Fingarton, is about to marry Cecilie, youngest daughter of the Duke of Sussex. A fuller society announcement can be given if required, bringing out the pleasing union of two historic families in these socialistic days...." She laughed again. "But speaking the normal mother tongue, a first-class boy is marrying a topping girl, which is all that matters." "It’s all coming back to me," I said, slowly. "I’m getting warm. There was another son, wasn’t there, and he died." "I believe so," she answered; "in fact I know there was. But he died before I was born. That was the first wife’s son. Daddy would be able to tell you all about that." "What’s that, my dear?" My host leaned across the table with a smile. "Sir Richard was asking me about Lord Fingarton’s family history, old man," she remarked, brightly. "I was telling him that I was slightly on the youthful side, and that you would elucidate the matter in your well-known breezy style. "It doesn’t require much elucidation," he said, slowly. "It was a mixture of tragedy and good fortune...." "I remember that the first son died, Bill, but..." I paused and waited for him to continue. "He broke his neck in the hunting field the day after he came of age. And the accident broke his mother’s heart. They were absolutely wrapped up in that boy—both of ’em.... Six months later she died in Scotland, at Fingarton...." He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar, and unconsciously my eyes wandered to the youngster at the neighbouring table.