mated. For she had a quite nasty husband who, by means of letters
and things, went on blackmailing poor Edward to the tune of three
or four hundred a year--with threats of the Divorce Court. And
after this lady came Maisie Maidan, and after poor Maisie only
one more affair and then--the real passion of his life. His marriage
with Leonora had been arranged by his parents and, though he
always admired her immensely, he had hardly ever pretended to
be much more than tender to her, though he desperately needed
her moral support, too. . . .

But his really trying liabilities were mostly in the nature of
generosities proper to his station. He was, according to Leonora,
always remitting his tenants' rents and giving the tenants to
understand that the reduction would be permanent; he was always
redeeming drunkards who came before his magisterial bench; he
was always trying to put prostitutes into respectable places--and
he was a perfect maniac about children. I don't know how many
ill-used people he did not pick up and provide with
careers--Leonora has told me, but I daresay she exaggerated and
the figure seems so preposterous that I will not put it down. All
these things, and the continuance of them seemed to him to be his
duty--along with impossible subscriptions to hospitals and Boy
Scouts and to provide prizes at cattle shows and antivivisection
societies. . . .

Well, Leonora saw to it that most of these things were not
continued. They could not possibly keep up Branshaw Manor at
that rate after the money had gone to the Grand Duke's mistress.
She put the rents back at their old figures; discharged the
drunkards from their homes, and sent all the societies notice that