“_Où prenez vous ce ton qui n’appartient qu’ à vous?_” he thought; and he acquitted her of any conspiracy in the cross-country walk, any complicity in his sister’s manœuvres to make her meet him at Bedlowes. She was undoubtedly a victim of circumstances--a square-cut ivory peg which was ill fitted to the round gilded hole into which it was forced. He did not for a moment doubt the sincerity of her dislike to her position; his own nature was one which enabled him to understand the revolt of hers. “But she must dree her weird,” he thought again. “Why are you so uncivil to that charming person who renders Beethoven so perfectly?” said his hostess to him that evening. “There is no harm in the charming person, but there is a great deal in her antecedents,” replied Hurstmanceaux very coldly. “Oh, ‘antecedents,’ my dear Ronnie! Who can look at them? Royalty itself disregards them when--when----” “When there’s money enough! I am not bound to follow the example of Royalty.” “You did what was unworthy of you, my dear old friend,” he added. “Of course Mouse egged you on; but you should know what Mouse is by this time.” “Indeed she meant no harm in this instance. She knows that you want money.” “I do not want money. I have not got very much at my command: that is another matter.” “But the boys are such a drag on you?” “Oh, no, they are fine fellows; they interest me, and they do very much what I tell them.” “You are a good man, Ronald, but you are obstinate and prejudiced.” “_On a les défauts de ses qualités._ I am not sure that I can boast any especial _qualités_, but I do know this, that I would be shot to-morrow rather than shake hands with a low brute who comes from God knows where with probably untold crimes upon his conscience.” Mrs. Raby shuddered and gave a nervous glance to the far distance where Mr. Massarene was playing whist. She was a delicate aged woman, and the idea of entertaining an undetected criminal was extremely painful to her. “He does look very like Cruickshank’s burglars in _Oliver Twist_,” she thought, regarding the round bullet head and Camus nose of her guest as he scowled down on the cards which he held; he was losing, and losing to the Principal of an Oxford College, whilst a Cabinet Minister was his (very inefficient) partner; but Mr. Massarene did not like losing--even at half-crown points and in the best company. He had not had much practice at whist; but he possessed a mathematical brain, and grasped its combinations admirably; and he would have made his inferior hand do the work of a good one if the Cabinet Minister had not been an ass, but had been able to second him. “They put men in the Government here,” he thought, “who over yonder we should not think had brains enough to drive a sweet stuff barrow on a plank walk.”