seemed a characteristic. “I haven’t heard much. Piersfield was full of it, as he would be, but more in the way of collecting than distributing, and, of course, little Roddy Arden was making the most of a new sensation. By the way, it was pretty well known yesterday among what I call the professionals, Dormer Greetland and his school, and they naturally made the most of their twenty-four hours’ start with the news.”

The Duke groaned. “All through a wretched footman.[45] It is terrible to think how mean an instrument it takes to set the world agog and to bring us into unpleasant notoriety.”

[45]

“Oh, it is nothing,” said his visitor in a tone between sympathy and indifference. “I certainly should not worry about it if I were you. It won’t be even a nine days’ wonder. The Rullington case comes on next Monday; there will be some pretty disclosures for the mob in that, and I hear that Lady Rullington has her trunks ready packed, and is prepared to skip.”

The Duchess raised her eyebrows. “As bad as that? It is a pity that a presumably sensible woman as Maud Rullington was at one time should have such a vague idea as to where to draw the line.”

The Duke breathed heavily through his set teeth. “These liftings of the curtain for the benefit of the mob are very damaging and regrettable.”

“They are,” Playford agreed. “And the man in the street is getting every day more eager for a peep.”

“The man in the street,” said the Duke, the phrase bringing to his mind an unpleasant reminiscence, “has been waiting outside my gates all day for a peep. I don’t know what we are coming to when our very privacy is invaded.”

“It is a sign of these times of undesirable publicity,” Playford answered, almost with a yawn. He had not come there to listen to his Grace’s platitudinous complaints, and was awaiting his opportunity for something else. As for the Lancashires, why, who can bring himself to sympathize with a Duke and Duchess in their social embarrassments? Are they not considered to stand too high on their pedestals for the sympathy of the crowd below to reach them, and to deserve any little[46] exposure which their exalted position invites? At any rate, they were just now but the king and queen of Aubrey Playford’s chess-board.

[46]

“I don’t think you need fear any pointing of scandal’s finger at you,” he observed, with a confidence-imparting 

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