LITMIR.BIZ

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was panelled in white throughout. Let into the panels here and there were first impressions of famous coloured mezzotints by Raphael Smith, Valentine Green, and other masters. They had been brought from the portfolios at Paddington House, and each one was worth three hundred pounds.

      The chairs of this room were upholstered in red leather – a true vermilion, and not the ordinary crimson – which went admirably with the white walls and the Persian carpet, brick-dust and peacock blue colour, from Teheran. A glowing fire of cedar logs sent a cheerful warmth into the room, and the flames were reflected in the china and silver of a small round table prepared for breakfast.

      Although it was November, there was a great silver dish of fruit, nectarines, and strawberries, grapes and peaches, all produced in the new electric forcing houses which had been installed at the duke's place at Fakenham. There was no apparatus for tea or coffee. In some things the duke was a little unusual. He never drank tea or coffee, but took a glass of thin white wine from Valperga. The tall yellow bottle stood on the table now, and by its side was a fragile glass of gold and purple, blown in Venice three hundred years ago.

      The duke crossed the room and the larger one that opened out of it. He pushed open the swing door – the heavy outer "oak" lay flat against the wall – and shouted down the staircase for his "scout."

      Despite the ineradicable belief of some popular novelists, there are no bells at Oxford, and duke or commoner must summon his servant in the good old mediæval way.

      In a minute the man appeared with breakfast. He had previously brought his master a printed list from the kitchens when he called him. Gardener was an elderly, grey-haired man, clean-shaven, and confidential of manner. He had served many young noblemen on staircase number one, and each and all had found him invaluable. He had feathered his nest well during the years, and was worth every penny of ten thousand pounds. A type produced nowhere in such completeness and perfection as at Oxford or Cambridge, he represented a certain definite social class, a class more hated by the working man than perhaps any other – the polite parasite!

      "Beastly weather, Gardener," said the duke in a voice which every one found musical and pleasant, a contented, full-blooded voice.

      "It is indeed, sir," said Gardener, as he arranged two silver dishes upon the table – "very dull and cold. I was told that there would be skating on Port Meadow as I came into college this morning."

      "Well, I don't think it will tempt me," said the duke. "You understand thoroughly about lunch?"

      "Thoroughly, sir, thank you. Do you wish anything else now, sir?"

      "Nothing more, Gardener. You can go."

      "I thank your grace," said the scout, and left the room. Gardener had brought the art of politeness to a high point. Indeed, he had elevated it to a science. He always made a distinction, thoroughly understood and appreciated by his masters, between himself and the ordinary flunkey or house servant. He called a duke or a marquis "sir" in general address, reserving the title for the moment of leaving the room, thus showing that he did not forget the claims of rank, while he was too well-bred to weary his hearer by undue repetition.

      The duke began his breakfast – a chop and a poached egg. The young man was by no means of a luxurious turn of mind as far as his personal tastes were concerned. Simplicity was the keynote of many of his actions. But he was very punctilious that everything about him should be "just so," and had he dined on a dish of lentils he would have liked them cooked by Escoffier.

      There was a pile of letters by his plate. He opened them one by one, throwing most of them on to an adjacent chair for his secretary – who called every day at eleven – to answer.

      One of the letters bore the cardinal's hat, which is the crest of Christ Church College, and was from the duke's greatest friend in the university, Viscount Hayle.

      This was the letter:

      "MY DEAR JOHN, – My father and sister arrived to-night, and, as I supposed, they will be delighted to lunch to-morrow. You said at one, didn't you? I have been dining with them at the Randolph, but I have come back to college, as I must read for a couple of hours before I go to bed.

"Yours,"GERALD."

      Gerald, Viscount Hayle, was the only son of the Earl of Camborne, who was a spiritual as well as a temporal peer inasmuch as he was the Bishop of Carlton, the great northern manufacturing centre.

      Lord Hayle and the Duke of Paddington had gone up to Oxford in the same term. They were of equal ages, and many of their tastes and opinions were identical, while the remaining differences of temperament and thought only served to accentuate their strong friendship and to give it a wholesome tonic quality.

      The duke had met Lord Camborne once only. He had never stayed at the palace, though often pressed to do so by Lord Hayle. Something or other had always intervened to prevent it. The two young men had not known each other during their school days – the duke had been at Eton, his friend at Winchester – and their association had been simply at the university.

      Now the bishop, who was a widower, was coming to Oxford for a few days, to be present at a reception to be given to Herr Schmölder, the famous German Biblical scholar, and was bringing his daughter, Lady Constance Camborne, with him.

      As he ate his nectarine the duke wondered what sort of a girl Lady Constance was. That she was very lovely he knew from general report, and Gerald also was extremely good-looking. But he wondered if she was like all the other girls he knew, accomplished, charming, sometimes beautiful and always smart, but – stereotyped.

      That was just what all society girls were; they always struck him as having been made in exactly the same mould. They said the same sort of things in the same sort of voice. Their thoughts ran in grooves, not necessarily narrow or limited grooves, but identical ones.

      Before he had finished breakfast the duke's valet entered. The man was his own private servant, and of course lived out of college, while there was a perpetual feud between him and old Gardener, the scout.

      The man carried two large boxes of thin wood in his hands.

      "The orchids have come, your grace," he said. "They were sent down from the shop in Piccadilly by an early train in answer to my telegram. I went to the station this morning to get them."

      "Oh, very well, Proctor," said the duke. "Thank you. Just open the boxes and I will look at them. Then you can arrange them in the other room. I sha'n't have any flowers on the table at lunch."

      In a minute Proctor had opened the boxes and displayed the wealth of strange, spotted blooms within – monstrous exotic flowers, beautiful with a morbid and almost unhealthy beauty.

      The duke was a connoisseur of orchids. "Yes, these will do very well," he said. "Now you can take them out."

      The man, a slim, clean-shaven young fellow, with dark eyes and a resolute jaw, hesitated a moment as if about to speak.

      The duke, who had found a certain pleasure in thinking of his friend's sister and wondering if she would be like her brother, had been lost in a vague but pleasing reverie in fact, looked up sharply. He wanted to be alone again. He wanted to catch up the thread of his thoughts. "Well?" he said. "I think I told you to go, Proctor?"

      The valet flushed at his master's tone. Then he seemed to make an effort. "I beg your grace's pardon," he said. "I wish to give you my notice."

      The duke stared at his valet. "Why, what on earth do you mean?" he said. "You've only been with me for nine months, and I have found you satisfactory in every way. You have just learnt all my habits and exactly how I like things done. And now you want to leave me! Are you aware, Proctor, that you enjoy a situation that many men would give their ears for?"

      "Indeed, your grace, I know that I am fortunate, and that there are many that would envy me."

      "Then don't talk any more nonsense. What do I pay you? A hundred and twenty pounds a year, isn't it? Well, then, take another twenty pounds. Now go and arrange the orchids."

      "I am very sorry, your grace," Proctor said. "But I do not seek any increase of wages. I respectfully ask you to accept my month's notice."

      A certain firmness

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