for hundreds of years. Her father, I daresay you know,
was the last Earl of Hever. The title died with him.
He left three daughters, who inherited his estates,
and my mother, being the eldest, got the Kentish properties.
Of course Hadlow House will come to me eventually,
but it is hers during her lifetime. I may speak of it
as my place, but that is merely a facon de parler; it isn't
necessary to explain to everybody that it's my mother's.
It's my home, and that's enough. It's a dear old place.
I can't tell you how glad I am that you're going to see
it."

"I'm very glad, too," said the other, with unaffected sincerity.

"All the ambitions I have in the world," the nobleman
went on, sitting upright now, and speaking with a
confidential seriousness, "centre round Hadlow.
That is the part of me that I'm keen about. The Plowdens
are things of yesterday. My grandfather, the Chancellor,
began in a very small way, and was never anything more
than a clever lawyer, with a loud voice and a hard heart,
and a talent for money-making and politics. He got
a peerage and he left a fortune. My father, for all
he was a soldier, had a mild voice and a soft heart.
He gave a certain military distinction to the peerage,
but he played hell-and-tommy with the fortune. And then
I come: I can't be either a Chancellor or a General,
and I haven't a penny to bless myself with. You can't think
of a more idiotic box for a man to be in. But now--thanks
to you--there comes this prospect of an immense change.