"Since you mean so well, I wish you success," he said. "Thanks, old fellow. I thought at first—" said De Vere, then paused. "Thought—what?" impatiently. "That you were—jealous, that you wanted her for yourself." "Pshaw! My future is already cut and dried," bitterly. "A promising one, too: twenty thousand a year, a wife already picked out for you—high-born and beautiful, of course. Even Lady Lancaster couldn't have the impertinence to select any other for Lord Lancaster." "Oh, by the bye," Lancaster said, with sudden eagerness. "Well?" "Do me this favor: don't rehearse any of my family history to Miss West—the barren title, the picked-out bride, and—the rest of it." "Certainly not. But of course she will know once she gets to England." "At least she need not know sooner," Lancaster replied. [Pg 56] [Pg 56] "No," assented De Vere; and then he asked thoughtfully. "Is it true that her aunt is the housekeeper at Lancaster Park?" "That is what my aunt says in her letter." "And yet she—my little beauty—does not look lowly born." "No; her mother was an American, you know. They—the Americans—all claim to be nobly born, I believe. They recognize no such caste distinctions as we do. Miss West bears a patent of nobility in her face," said Lancaster, kindly. "Does she not, the little darling? What a sweet good nature beams in her little face. And, after all, it is our own poet laureate who says: "'Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good:
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