And the dog looked at her with his pathetic golden-brown eyes and understood, and was comforted. Katherine Massarene, in her ignorance of the manifold wheels within wheels of a temperament and character like that of her father’s most honored guest, thought that at least Lady Kenilworth showed some decent feeling in not being accompanied by Lord Brancepeth. In point of fact she had not brought Harry because she retained a vivid recollection of his expressed desire to be allowed to ally himself with the heiress of Vale Royal. Besides, Harry, like greater men, had substitutes, and one of them had come down with her; a very agreeable and accomplished foreign diplomatist whose wife was remaining at Sandringham, a gentleman who would have been able to add many chapters to the _Psychologie de l’Amour_, who considered that brevity was the soul of love as of wit; and who had a good-humored contempt for Harry, such as very clever persons who are also amiable feel for other persons not very clever whom they are outwitting with discretion and amusement. “_Pauvre garçon! il prend la chose en bon père de famille_,” he said once, looking at Harry carrying little Gerry on his shoulders, with Jack clinging to his coat-pockets, in the park at Staghurst. The gentleman preferred episodes which could be enjoyed like cigarettes, but, in this to cigarettes superior, leave no ash nor even a bit of burnt paper behind them. This distinguished representative of a Great Power was met by Mr. Massarene early one morning, when he went to see if the heating-apparatus in the corridor was duly at the proper degree of caloric in the long tapestry-hung gallery which led to the Bird rooms, and led nowhere else. He was so unpleasantly astonished at the meeting that he stared open-mouthed at the elegant form of this gentleman, who, after a rapid glance round, which told him that to conceal himself was impossible, sauntered on calmly till he was close to his host, who kept the knob of an open valve in his hand. “I hear you have some wonderful Battersea and Chelsea in there, Monsieur,” he said with his soft meridional accent. “Miladi Kenilworth kindly offered to show it to me, but her maid says she is gone in the garden.” Mr. Massarene, to whom the words were somewhat unintelligible from their foreign pronunciation, only heard distinctly Battersea and Chelsea, names to him only suggestive of Primrose Habitations and political gatherings. He repeated the words mechanically and apologetically. “Faïence,” said the diplomatist in explanation; “china birds, very rare, very old, very curious.” Mr. Massarene’s countenance cleared a little. “Oh, yes I believe there is some old china in that apartment. I could take your Excellency in to see it if Lady Kenilworth has gone out; did her maid say that she had?” Though the ambassador’s countenance was trained to express nothing it did express for an instant a lively alarm.