"Ay, s-my lord! I'm sure I'm very glad, s-your lordship. Rose, sir? With the silver lacing?"
"I think so, Jim. And a cream-very pale cream waistcoat, broidered in with rose. There is one, I know."
"Yes, sir-your lordship."
My lord eyed him despondently.
"Er-Jim!"
"Yes-your lordship?"
"I'm sorry, but I cannot endure it."
"I beg pardon, my lord?"
"I can't have you call me 'your lordship,' after every second word-I really cannot."
"Why, sir-may I still call you 'sir'?"
"I would much rather you did."
"Ay, sir-thank you." . . .
In the middle of tying the bow to his master's wig Jim paused, and in the mirror Jack saw his face fall.
"What's amiss now? And what have you done with my patches?"
"In that little box, sir-yes-that one. I was just thinking-here's the haresfoot, sir-that I shall never be able to see ye hold up a coach now!"
My lord, striving to affix the patch in just the right spot at the corner of his mouth, tried to control his features, failed, and went off into a peal of laughter that reached O'Hara in the room across the landing, and caused him to grin delightedly. He had not heard that laugh for many a long day. EPILOGUE HIS GRACE OF ANDOVER sat at the window of his lodgings at Venice, looking down at a letter in his hand. The writing was his sister's.
After a moment he drew a deep breath and broke the seal, spreading the sheets out upon the broad sill.
"My very dear Tracy, "So you have gone again with no Farewell to yr. poor Sister, sir! I am indeed very offended, but I understand yr. Reason. As soon as I sett mine eyes on Diana I knew the Truth and recognised yr. dark Beauty. I am monstrous grieved for you, dear. I quite love her myself, altho' she is very tiresomely lovely, but perhaps as she is dark and I am fair, we shall not clash.
"The Home-coming was prodigious exciting. Andrew was present, Dicky, of course, and me. Mrs. Fanshawe, too, was there, for she knew Jack Abroad, and a monstrous queer Old Man, who was vastly fidgetty and overcome to see Jack. Then Sir Miles and his wife came, who I thought quite agreeable nice People, and Diana's Father and Aunt, rather Bourgeois, but, on the whole, presentable.
"Everyone knows the Truth now, but most People have been prodigious kind and I scarce notice a difference in our Reception. Dearest Dicky is gayer than he was wont to be and more darling, and I almost enjoy being a Social Outcast.