The Reason Why

was slight and fair, and had an immaculately groomed appearance generally-which even the best of valets cannot always produce. He wore his clothes with that quiet, un

ndon some ten years previously from Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, and had immediately become

of those smaller ones just at the turn out of Grosvenor

ival. If he had to use undesirables for business purposes he used them only for that, in a crisp, hard way, and never went to their houses. Every acqu

out on the park, he was perhaps forty-six years old or thereabouts, and

leather chair. The visitors in Francis Markrute's library near

hair was dark though his eyes were blue, and the marks of breeding in the creature showed as plainly as in a Derby winner. Francis Markrute always smoked his cigars to the end, if he were at leisure and the weed happened to be a good one, bu

irty, and there is nothing interesting left for me to do but e

ily, I suppose?" said

id there is not a great deal left this year, it seems. I don't mind much; I h

y forbears got rid of what they could; there was no

smoked for a mi

unge, if you settle its duration; it is the drifting and trusting to chance, and a

s last night, and to whom the lit

of Jacques Roll

e is any quantity of money to be made there with a little capital, and it is a nice, open-air life. I just looked in this afternoon on my way back from Scotland to

en he did this there was always someth

ed to expensive ladies. You are cultivated, for a sportsman, and you have made one or two decent speeches in the House of Lords

rowing rather rotten over here. We have let the rabble-the most unfit and ignorant-have the casting vot

If Lord Tancred had not been so preoccupied with his own thoughts he would have remarked this restlessness on the part o

a niece-a widow-she is rather an attractive lady. If you will marry her I

" said Lor

an instant gave forth a flash of steel. There had been an infinite v

uestion causes you t

f Lord Tancred n

gin with, and to marry an unknown woman, to have o

umber of your peers who have gone to Amer

s in England-and up to now we have not had any cads nor cowards in the family, and I think a man who marries a woman for money is

hands. He was a peculiar

like to see her married to an Englishman. I would like to see her married to you of all Englishmen because I like you and you have qualities about you which count in life. Oh, bel

ncred l

your deuced cold-blooded point of view on every subject. I like your knowledge of wines and cigars and pictures, and you

would be cold

osterous. I don't believe you mean a word

make such jokes, Tancred?

odd part of it. What the devil

very debt you have, and give you

and deliberate in moments of danger or difficulty; yet he never lived under self-conscious control as the financier did. He was rath

some of my likings-and dislikings. I never go after a woman unless she attracts me, and I would never marry one of them unless I were madly in love with her, whether she had m

you were in love, in spite of eve

is all story-book stuff-that almighty passion, I expect. They

for a woman to matter," the fina

red announced, "and may the day be far

us smile crept over

ld be willing to marry me, Francis? You spoke a

as I said before, you are rather a perfect picture of an English no

y vain, though a man, and he had

g into a sort of matrimonial agent. Can'

and a large fortune. But we will say no more about it. I shall be glad to be of any service I can to you, anyway, in regard to your Canadian scheme

cred got up to go; but just at the d

l I see t

so he permitted the flicker of a smil

have dismissed the

they

button of a wonderful trifle of Russian enamel and emeralds, whic

peak to her here immediately, please,"

, and was growing impatient, before the door