younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
cult of it into regular religion."

"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"

"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
the generation before."

Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"

"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"

Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.

"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well