Duke of Glastonbury, though, if he had lived--but he
was drowned, and she was left poor as a church mouse.
Oh! by the way!" he started up, with a gleam of aroused
interest on his face--"it didn't in the least occur
to me. Why, she's a daughter of our General Kervick.
How did he get on the Board, by the way? Where did you pick
him up?"

Thorpe bent his brows in puzzled lines. "Why, you introduced
me to him yourself, didn't you?" he asked, slowly.

Plowden seemed unaffectedly surprised at the suggestion,
as he turned it over in his mind. "By George! I think
you're right," he said. "I'd quite forgotten it.
Of course I did. Let me see--oh yes, I reconstruct it
readily enough now. Poor old chappie--he needs all he
can get. He was bothering her about money--that was it,
I remember now--but what an idiot I was to forget it.
But what I was saying--there's no one else but my mother
and sister, and my brother Balder. He's a youngster--twenty
or thereabouts--and he purports to be reading for his exams
for the Army. If they opened his head, though, I doubt
if they'd find anything but cricket and football,
unless it might be a bit of golf. Well--that's the party.
I thought you might like to have a notion of them in advance.
If you've finished your cigarette"--he threw his own
into the grate, and rose as he spoke--"we may as well be
moving along. By the way," he concluded, as they walked
toward the door, "I've an idea that we won't say anything,
just at the moment, about our great coup. I should like