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showed a danger signal. "However, be prudent. Don't make up your mind too soon. The best fish aren't always caught in the deep sea. One waits to have a look round the markets."

      Loveland grinned. "Thank you for the tip. I won't forget."

      "Not likely that you'll hold yourself too cheap, eh?" Jim could not resist that one dig, in spite of the scar, and Betty's laugh in the blue eyes between their black fringes.

      But Val did not see the joke, as he assuredly would if it had been aimed at anybody else. Jim having married into the family, ought to uphold the family pride, and Loveland doubted not that he did.

      "Rather not," he returned patronizingly. "You needn't be afraid, my dear chap. Very kind of you to think of me for this cabin. And though it's a bit short notice, that can't be helped. Foxham will get me off somehow."

      "You'll hardly have time to let people know your change of plan," said Jim. "But of course if you don't mind a little expense you can Marconi to Lady Loveland from the ship."

      "Of course," assented Lady Loveland's son, who would not have thought of the attention had it not been suggested to him. "But it will hardly be necessary."

      "Perhaps not," said Jim.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Lord Loveland Makes a Start

      Loveland's only experience of sea life, except for a little yachting, had been in going out to, and returning from, South Africa; but he had learned to take care of himself on shipboard, and though his name was not on the passenger list of the Mauretania, his deck chair was soon placed by an attentive steward in a sheltered corner nearly amidship. This advantage was secured by a tempting tip, a tip out of all proportion to the giver's resources: but then, there were many people on the Mauretania who came on board more like clients returning to a hotel where they had been known by the management for years, than passengers travelling on a new ship; and Loveland did not intend to be defeated in an unequal competition. He wanted the best of everything on this trip, and felt that money would be well spent in obtaining it. He always did feel this when he had any money – or credit – to spend.

      Possibly he might have economized coin by parading his title, but though spoiled and conceited he was also a gentleman, and while he might trade upon his position for the matrimonial market, would not flaunt it gratuitously. He considered he would be giving value for value: taking a girl's dollars and making her a Marchioness: but he thought too much of himself to "put on side."

      When the deck-steward politely asked if he wished to use a visiting card as a chair-marker, Val told him to write the name of Loveland on a slip of paper or a luggage label; anything would do. So the steward did as he was bidden, ignorant that he served a "lord."

      Loveland did not feel that he needed cheap advertisement. It would soon leak out that he was a personage, and, sure enough, it did. When he had discreetly explained to the purser his possession of Mr. VanderPot's cabin, the news of the change went round from steward to steward, and was promptly "spotted" as a tit-bit by the greatest gossip on the ship, who happened to inhabit the stateroom opposite.

      Major Cadwallader Hunter (a retired major, of course; he would not have had time to develop his qualities while on the active list) was told that he had Loveland for a neighbour, and looked at the cabin door with kindling interest. Being himself, he had studied the passenger list, as a collector of antiques is wont to study the announcements of sales. He could have rattled off by heart all the names worth rattling, and he was certain that Lord Loveland's had not been among them.

      Major Cadwallader Hunter was an American of a type laughed at by the best of his own countrymen. He knew his Burke and Debrett better than many an Englishman even of that middle class which can afford to be ignorant of no detail concerning the aristocracy. He was aware that there existed a Marquis of Loveland who was young and unmarried; he knew all about his family connections, and he wondered how such an important gentleman had strayed on board the Mauretania unheralded. "I suppose this fellow must be the Loveland, of course," he said to himself. "But why not be published frankly on the passenger list? Can there be a secret?"

      At this moment Loveland walked out from his stateroom, having come below for pipe and tobacco-pouch. He caught Major Cadwallader Hunter staring at his door, and gave him a brief yet supercilious glance. To some men it would have seemed an offensive glance, but Major Cadwallader Hunter was not to be easily offended by a man he wished to know. He disappeared into his own cabin, by way of proving that he was a neighbour, not a Paul Pry; but a few minutes later he was on deck, ambling amiably from one group of acquaintances to another, and dexterously avoiding detrimentals.

      Cadwallader Hunter aspired to be a leader of society. He was one of those strange beings – heraldic, rampant, disregardant – who are born snobs, in spite of good birth and good breeding. Therefore he was not a genuine article (since no snob can be genuine) but had moulded himself into a thing of airs and affectations. Nevertheless he managed to impress most second-rate people, and some who were first-rate. Those who did not live in New York believed him to be of consequence in that city, and the Paris Herald always reported his comings and goings. He was a thin, well-groomed man, of middle age, with a heart-hiding smile, a high nose and a high voice; gold-rimmed eyeglasses giving glitter to pale, cold eyes; a waxed moustache; a carefully cultivated "English accent," and a marvellous fund of scandalous anecdotes concerning everyone about whom it was worth while to be scandalous. He had at least a bowing acquaintance with all the richest Americans on board, and he mixed with his greetings here and there a careless "Do you know we have Lord Loveland on the ship – the Marquis of Loveland? Such a good-looking young man. One of the oldest and most distinguished peerages in England; family of soldiers since the dark ages, though the less said about some of them since the days of the Georges the better. This boy not so bad as some of the old boys before him. Not to be despised by débutantes, eh? Do I know him? – "

      (As a matter of fact, Cadwallader Hunter could count his acquaintances in the British peerage on the fingers of one hand, and have a thumb to spare; for it is the genuine, unaffected, typical Americans, or else the heavily gilded and diamond-incrusted ones whom English people like to know. But this question was bound to come. He had led up to it, and was prepared.)

      "Do I know him? Why, in a way we're connections by marriage. You must remember pretty Lady Betty Bulkeley who took us all by storm a year or two ago – sister of the Duke of Stanforth? Jimmy Harborough, whom she married, is I believe a forty-second cousin of mine: and Lady Betty and Lord Loveland are related. So you see – "

      And for fear that they should see – something that he did not wish them to see – he pottered away to "get at" Loveland before anyone could possibly have the chance to find out that they two were strangers.

      Meanwhile Loveland had not been wasting time.

      He thought that Jim Harborough's hint about "deep sea fish" was a wise one, wiser than he would have expected from Harborough. Still, there was no harm in keeping his eyes open; and having kept them open from the first moment after coming on board, he had discovered several very pretty girls. With a certain amount of eagerness, rather as one looks at one's cards when beginning a new rubber of bridge, he glanced over the passenger-list, hoping that some of the names might be identical with those on his letters of introduction. But there were no such coincidences, and he, unluckily, was too ignorant of American society to know which of his fellow passengers were most important. However, he made up his mind that one of the first things to do, was to find out.

      Sure of his chair, on which the name of "Loveland" already appeared in the steward's handwriting, he paced up and down and all round the deck, pipe in mouth and hands in pockets. It was a November day, of Indian summer warmth. The huge ship felt no impulse from the waves which fawned upon her sides, and Loveland, who had been bored by the necessity to leave his native land, began suddenly to feel happy, quite boyishly happy.

      A great many other people were parading up and down also; pretty girls, walking alone, or with parents, or accompanied by youths with whom they intended to flirt during the voyage. Shrewd-faced men, with eyes good-natured yet keen, and an air of solid importance which might mean millions; handsome, prosperous-looking women whom Loveland guessed to be Newport and New York hostesses pleased to welcome prowling Marquesses;

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