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."

"Reginald has stuck at nothing to get money," the Duchess continued. "He has been on the board of any company willing to pay him a few guineas for his name.  I believe things have come to such a pitch in that direction that the most foolhardy investor throws the prospectus away if his name is on it.  He has drained his relatives dry.  And yet, if you can reconcile all these things, he is, in his way, the very soul of honour.  Now, having told you this, you can do as you please.  If you lend him money, you'll probably never get it back.  If you've any to chuck away, I can show you a hundred deserving charities.  Reginald without money is really a harmless and extraordinarily amusing person.  Reginald in search of money is the most dangerous person I know.  That is what I wanted to tell you, and if you like now 

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