There was something about him which made all manly men, of whatever class, from cabdrivers to his own brothers and brother-in-law, perpetually desire to kick him. He knew that men wished to kick him; and he did not try to kick them in return. He wore his degradation smilingly, as if it were an Order. “That is the utterly hopeless thing about him,” said his father once. The Ormes had always been great people--true, staunch, polished gentlemen, holding a great stake in the country, and holding it worthily, riding straight, and living honorably. By what caprice of chance, what irony of fate, had this stalwart and high-principled race produced such a depraved and degenerate being as Cocky? “There must be something very wrong in our social system that so many of our men of position are no sounder than rotten apples,” the duke said once to a person, who replied that there were black sheep in all countries. “Yes, but our black sheep are labeled prize rams,” replied Otterbourne. The four little children in the nurseries did not give him much consolation. The gossip of society hung over them like a cloud in his sight, and there were none of those dark sleepy eyes in his family portraits at Staghurst. “There are no black-eyed Ormes in our family portraits,” he said once to his eldest son; and Cocky’s face wore for an instant a droll expression, and his left eye winked. But it was only for an instant. “There’s a legend,” he said, rolling a cigarette; “Richard Orme married a gipsy in William Rufus’s time. Lord, who shall say to where the brats throw back?” “Who indeed?” said the duke with a significance which penetrated even the Cognac-sodden brains of his heir. But the legend did really exist, and when the children’s mother heard of the gipsy of William Rufus’s time she thought the legend a very interesting one and very useful. But who could blame Cocky’s wife for anything? Besides, the duke was of that old English temper, now grown so rare, which thought dishonor carried into a law court was only made much worse by the process, and was painfully conscious that Kenilworth, although he looked like a gentleman, spoke like one, moved like one, and wore his clothes like one, was in many sorrowful respects a cad. But a clever cad! Yes, Cocky was clever by nature, if not by study; that was perhaps the very worst part of the whole matter. He could play the fool--did play it almost perpetually--but he had not been born a fool. There was not even that excuse for him.