length entered his club. In the library sat only one man, sunk in an
easy chair, busied with a book. It was Lord Dymchurch; at Lashmar's
approach, he looked up, smiled, and rose to take the offered hand.

"I disturb you," said Dyce.

"There's no denying it," was the pleasant answer, "but I am quite
ready to be disturbed. You know this, of course?"

He showed Spencer's "The Man versus the State."

"Yes," answered Dyce, "and I think it a mistake from beginning to
end."

"How so?"

Lord Dymchurch was about thirty, slight in build, rather languid in
his movements, conventionally dressed but without any gloss or
scrupulous finish, and in manners peculiarly gentle. His
countenance, naturally grave, expressed the man of thought rather
than of action; its traits, at the same time, preserved a curious
youthfulness, enhanced by the fact of his wearing neither moustache
nor beard; when he smiled, it was with an almost boyish frankness,
irresistible in its appeal to the good will of the beholder. Yet the
corners of his eyes were touched with the crow's foot, and his hair
began to be brindled, tokens which had their confirmation on brow
and lip as often as he lost himself in musing. He had a soft voice,
habitually subdued. His way of talking inclined to the quietly
humorous, and was as little self-assertive as man's talk can be; but
he kept his eyes fixed on anyone who conversed with him, and that