Something of this kind he had long ago suspected and feared, but the truth had never been visible to him in its naked venality before this morning ride with Jack. So long as Cocky had been alive, although it had been disgraceful enough, it had not seemed so utterly abominable as it did now to know that his sister obtained her luxuries by such expedients. What to do he could not tell. She did not acknowledge his authority in any way, and set the law at defiance as far as she could, even as concerned his jurisdiction over her children. He could not accuse her without proof, and he had none; accusation also was useless--she was wholly indifferent to his opinion and censure. Her position in the world remained intact, and it was not her brother’s place to proclaim her unworthy to occupy it. That which he longed to do--to take William Massarene by the throat and shake the truth out of him--was impossible by reason of his own habits, manners, and social sphere, in which all such brawling was considered only fit for cads. “How very angry he looks!” thought Jack, and was glad when he had got away and changed his riding-clothes, and run upstairs to Boo. It was not very often now that he was allowed to scamper up to the children’s tea and daub himself with honey and marmalade, and pile sugar on hot buttered toast. The servants called him “sir,” and Boo’s governess called him “M. le Duc.” It was all deadly dull, and Jack envied the hall-boy. “You will have a great stake in the country,” said his tutor. “A beefsteak?” said saucy Jack, and was set to write out a line fifty times, which was very hard work to a little man who could only move a pen with extreme slowness and stiffness in letters an inch high, for his education had been extremely neglected. He admired his uncle Ronald because Hurstmanceaux was the kind of man whom boys always do admire; but he was afraid of him, and he sighed for his beloved Harry. There was nobody like Harry in all the wide world, and where had his idol gone? “Not ever to write!” said Jack to himself, with tears in his eyes. He did not say anything about his anxiety even to Boo, for Boo was at no time sympathetic, and was at this moment delirious with town joys, having gone to a morning performance, some _tableaux vivants_, and a water-color exhibition all in one day, wearing a marvelous picture-hat and a new bracelet-watch.