“Yes, I have,” he says. “It's slow for a man over thirty with no wife and kids to bustle him, you take it from me, and I ain't the talent for the Don Juan fake.” “You're like me,” I says, “a day's work, and then a pipe by your own fireside with your slippers on. That's my swarry. You'll find someone as will suit you before long.” “No I shan't,” says he. “I've come across a few as might, if it 'adn't been for 'er. It's like the toffs as come out our way. They've been brought up on 'ris de veau a la financier,' and sich like, and it just spoils 'em for the bacon and greens.” I give her the office the next time I see her, and they met accidental like in Kensington Gardens early one morning. What they said to one another I don't know, for he sailed that same evening, and, it being the end of the season, I didn't see her ladyship again for a long while. When I did it was at the Hotel Bristol in Paris, and she was in widow's weeds, the Marquis having died eight months before. He never dropped into that dukedom, the kid turning out healthier than was expected, and hanging on; so she was still only a Marchioness, and her fortune, though tidy, was nothing very big--not as that class reckons. By luck I was told to wait on her, she having asked for someone as could speak English. She seemed glad to see me and to talk to me. “Well,” I says, “I suppose you'll be bossing that bar in Capetown now before long?” “Talk sense,” she answers. “How can the Marchioness of Appleford marry a hotel keeper?” “Why not,” I says, “if she fancies him? What's the good of being a Marchioness if you can't do what you like?” “That's just it,” she snaps out; “you can't. It would not be doing the straight thing by the family. No,” she says, “I've spent their money, and I'm spending it now. They don't love me, but they shan't say as I have disgraced them. They've got their feelings same as I've got mine.” “Why not chuck the money?” I says. “They'll be glad enough to get it back,” they being a poor lot, as I heard her say. “How can I?” she says. “It's a life interest. As long as I live I've got to have it, and as long as I live I've got to remain the Marchioness of Appleford.” She finishes her soup, and pushes the plate away from her. “As long as I live,” she says, talking to herself. “By Jove!” she says, starting up “why not?” “Why not what?” I says. “Nothing,” she answers. “Get me an African telegraph form, and be quick about it!” I fetched it for her, and she wrote it and gave it to the porter then and there; and, that done, she sat down and finished her dinner. She was a bit short with me after that; so I judged it best to keep my own place.