If John Hammond had been brought up in that other environment, he might not have set store by it. If his lot had not cast him among those to whom such things were matter of course he might not have felt the deprivation. He knew well enough that he had advantages which, in the world’s estimation, far outweighed those which he was without. He knew that he lived in an age when the homage which birth pays to wealth is open and unashamed. He had seen peers bringing their wives to wait in the halls of African Jews. He had heard of mysterious checks received by men of Norman lineage from millionaires who sprang up in a night like monstrous toadstools, and decayed, leaving the air poisoned all around them. He had seen the noblest blood of England in the dock, and the oldest blood of Scotland warned off the turf. His reason told him that he was immensely the superior of such men; but no man’s beliefs, any more than his actions, are governed by reason. The acute logician who has failed to prove to himself the existence of a God takes refuge in the infallibility of a man. John Hammond’s instinct told him that the boasts of low-born poets were not altogether truth, that the blood of the Howards did not lose all its virtues even in the veins of sots and slaves, that a gentleman was as much above a king’s might as an honest man was, and that neither kind heart nor simple faith could take the place of one drop of Norman blood. Every man’s character has its weak spot, and this was the weak spot in John Hammond’s. There were moments when he despised himself for the halo with which his imagination encircled the heads of the caste into which he had not been born. There were other moments when he felt inclined to marry the Lady Victoria Mauleverer. Mr. Hammond entered. “I’m afraid you find me brutally punctual, marchioness,” he said, in a vigorous, masculine voice that seemed to go through the atmosphere of the drawing-room like a breath of fresh air. “That is the worst of business habits. I wanted to wait down in the hall till somebody else came, but they wouldn’t let me.” The marchioness smiled graciously, with a horrible inward misgiving that Mr. Hammond had overheard her rash protest against his arrival. “But you needn’t talk to me unless you like,” he added, remorselessly, as he finished shaking hands with the two women. “I will sit still and look at photographs. Is this a new one of Lord Severn?” “You are not a moment too soon,” the dismayed marchioness hastened to say. “Do you know Mr. Cyril Despencer, Mr. Hammond?” The two men bowed with mutual distrust. “I assure you we were absolutely dying when you came.” “Really! I must apply for a medal from the Royal Humane Society for saving life.” He turned to Victoria, who had dropped into her chair again with an elaborate assumption of being bored to distraction. “Lady Victoria, you are looking remarkably well for a corpse.”