David was conscious of a curious fit of reserve, a sudden closing up of that easy intimacy into which they seemed to have drifted. "I shall always be pleased," he said stiffly. Letitia kissed her aunt and departed. The Duchess sank into her empty place. "I am going to be a beast," she began. "Have you been lending money to my brother?" "Not a sixpence," David assured her. The Duchess was evidently staggered. "You surprise me," she confessed. "However, so much the better. It won't interfere with what I have to say to you. I first took you to Grosvenor Square, didn't I?" "You were so kind," he admitted. "Now I come to think of it," she reflected, "I remember thinking it strange at the time that, though I couldn't induce you to go anywhere else, or meet any one else, you never hesitated about making Reginald's acquaintance." "He was your brother, you see," David reminded her. "It didn't occur to me," she replied drily, "that that was the reason. However, what I want to say to you is this, in bald words--don't lend him money." David looked once more across the tops of the trees. "I gather that the Marquis, then, is impecunious?" he said. "Reginald hasn't a shilling," the Duchess declared earnestly. "Let me just tell you how they live. Letitia has two thousand a year, and so has Margaret, from their mother. Margaret's husband, who is a decent fellow, won't touch her money and makes her an allowance, so that nearly all her two thousand, and all of Letitia's, except the few ha'pence she spends on clothes, go to keeping an establishment together. Reginald has sold every scrap of land he could, years ago. Mandeleys is the only estate he has left, and there isn't a square yard of that that isn't mortgaged to the very fullest extent. It's always a scramble between his poor devils of lawyers and himself, whether there's a little margin to be got out of the rents after paying the interest. If there is, it goes, I believe, towards satisfying the claims of a lady down at Battersea." "A lady down at Battersea," David replied. "Is it--may I ask--an old attachment?" "A very old one indeed," the Duchess replied, "and, to tell you the truth, it's one of the most reputable things I know connected with Reginald. He is inconstant in everything else he does, and without being in any way wilfully dishonest, he is absolutely unreliable. But this lady at Battersea--she belonged to one of his tenants or something--I forget the story--has kept him within reasonable bounds for more years than I should like to say-- What do you see over there, Mr. Thain?" she broke off suddenly, following his steadfast gaze. David dropped his eyes from the clouds. His fingers relaxed their nervous clutch of the sides of his chair. "Nothing," he answered. "I am interested. Please go on."