"He's the third and youngest son," replied St. Maur.

"And may I ask for details about the title;--you must think me dreadfully ignorant!"

"Not at all, sir," St. Maur answered. "It is a Charles I. creation. They are a Sussex family. As you probably know, Charles I. did not create peers indiscriminately. The Stuart creations are, on the whole, a credit to the monarchs who were responsible for them, particularly those of Charles I."

Sir Joseph nodded politely, but looked as if this information did not quite harmonise with his own conception of that prince.

"The fourth Earl of Chesterfield perhaps disgraced himself a little over Dr. Johnson," St. Maur added, "but as a rule the families who owe their rank to the Royal Martyr have upheld their great traditions with singular success. And possibly against the case of the fourth Earl of Chesterfield we may set that of the sixth Lord Byron, who gave us _Childe Harold_ and _Manfred_."

Sir Joseph was genuinely interested. "Lord Henry is, I believe, a very wonderful personality," he remarked.

"You are right, sir," replied St. Maur, "very wonderful."

The young man rose again. He was a little above medium height, with dark crisp hair and a sallow complexion. His figure and features gave the impression of metallic virility: they were at once hard, supple, clean-cut, and finely moulded. His mouth was a little full, and his jaw perhaps a trifle heavy, but the deep thoughtful eyes gave a balance to his face which saved it from appearing unduly sensual.

"That is a pleasant young man," Sir Joseph declared, when St. Maur had gone.

"Yes," Denis replied half-heartedly. He, too, had been impressed by St.

Maur, but not favourably. For Denis Malster, cultivated, sleek, and refined though he was, just lacked that exuberance and vitality which he had observed in St. Maur, and which made the latter so conspicuously his superior. Denis had nothing to compensate him for his tame, careful, Kensington breeding. St. Maur, on the other hand, had that fire and warmth of blood, without which even the highest breeding is little more than the extirpation of the animal at the expense of the man. Denis was an easy winner with the women of his class, precisely because of the parade which, in his face, nature made of his gentle antecedents; but he had sufficient intelligence to realise that when women are confronted by a man possessing all he possessed, besides that something more that was noticeable in St. Maur the best of them do not hesitate a second in selecting the St. Maur type.

"I wonder if that is all true about Charles I.?" Sir Joseph demanded with a little irritation.

Denis leant back in his chair and his eyes twinkled. "I doubt whether it is true of Charles I.," he said; "but it certainly isn't true of his son and heir, for Charles II. used the peerage more or less as a sort of foundling hospital for his various illegitimate offspring."

Sir Joseph smiled, as he frequently did, at his secretary's odd way of summing up a case, and then quickly resuming his gravity, glanced searchingly at Denis as if pondering whether the word of such a man could confidently be taken against that of an Aubrey St. Maur. For some minutes he paced the rug in front of the fire-place, his hands behind his back, and his head bowed. At last he raised his eyes and looked more affably than usual at his assistant.

"You know, Malster," he began, "I've been thinking for some time that although you appear to take to this work less quickly than some men I have had, you are on the whole trying your hardest--are you not?"

Denis, a little startled by the palpable injustice of this remark, rose, and resting the points of his fingers lightly on the table, leant forward. "Ye--yes, sir," he stammered.

"'Ow old are you?" Sir Joseph continued.

"Twenty-eight, sir."

Sir Joseph repeated the words. "How much are you getting?"

"Eight hundred, sir," Denis replied.

Sir Joseph turned sharply on his heel and slightly accelerated his pace across the rug.

"H'm! Well, I propose to make it a thousand," he said thoughtfully.

Denis Malster smiled nervously. "Thank you, Sir Joseph."

"I propose to do this," continued the baronet, "because I think you must be wanting to marry, and because I think it wrong that a man of your age should be prevented from marrying owing to lack of means. D'you understand? Only that!"

"I think it most considerate of you," Denis faltered again.

"Well, that's settled," said Sir Joseph drily. "But," he added, always on tenterhooks of anxiety lest one of his staff should begin to think too much of himself, "I should like you to be quite clear about my reasons for the change. I don't want you to run away with the notion that I am giving you a rise because I am entirely satisfied with your work."

As he said this Sir Joseph resumed his seat, and pulled in his heavy chair as smartly as he was able, with the air of a man who had neatly achieved his object without abandoning the usual safe-guards.

It was a minute to six when the messenger announced Lord Henry Highbarn, and the moment the announcement was made, Denis, reaching for his hat and stick, took leave of his chief. He strode out into the street with a sprightly gait, humming as he went:

"I don't adore the girl in blue For all her family's after you."

There is probably in most men a sense of quality, a power of divination in regard to value which, on occasions when they are confronted by a stranger whose worth they do not know, informs them immediately of the comparative rarity or commonness of his type. This sense may at first be baffled by the delusive disguises in which men sometimes present themselves, but as a rule a chance word, an artless gesture, or even a glance, quickly corrects the initial error of the eye, and in a moment the original estimate is adjusted to the unmistakable evidence of a definite quality.

When this peculiar apprehensiveness in regard to worth becomes aware of any marked superiority in a fellow creature,--an experience which in unhappy lives very seldom occurs,--a feeling of certainty usually accompanies it, which is as mysterious as the evidence upon which it is based is intangible and elusive. A man knows that he has met his superior, he knows too how far the superiority he recognises extends, and he is conscious of experiencing something exceptional, something exquisitely precious.

That such encounters are becoming every day more rare, probably explains the increasing growth, in modern times, of that kind of disbelief and heresy which, far from being wanton, arises from a total inability to envisage greatness, whether in kings, ideals, or gods. For we arrive at our most exalted images, not by solitary flights of imagination unassisted, but by actual progressive steps in the world of concrete things; so that the spring-board from which we take our final leap into the highest concepts of what a god might be, is always the highest man we happen to have met. We can have no other starting-point. Hence in an age when greatness among men is too rare to be felt as a universal fact, a disbelief in all gods is bound sooner or later to supervene.

When Lord Henry Highbarn presented himself before Sir Joseph, it was plain from the meek droop of the baronet's eyelids and the subdued hesitating tone of his voice, that something in the young nobleman's appearance had like a flash intimated to the experienced financial magnate that here was someone of a quality as unfamiliar as it was rare.

Moreover, the difference which the older man felt distinguished him from his visitor was of a kind too fundamental and insuperable to challenge even that friendly rivalry so instinctive between two natures each conscious of their own particular efficiency and excellence.

Indeed, it needed all the elaborate complications of our modern civilisation to account even for the meeting of these two people under the same roof, not to speak of the fact that they met on an equal footing.

The one, a plain but not unpretentious man of business, still a little perplexed by his stupendous success, and not yet certain of his precise social level, revealed in his unshapely but kindly features the modest rung on which Nature herself would probably have placed him, if the peculiar economic conditions of his Age had not intervened to bring about a different result; while two characteristics alone led one to suspect his latent power,--his large energetic hands with their powerful spatulate fingers, and his masterful and meditative dark eyes.

The other,--a tall, muscular, youthful-looking aristocrat, with deep-set thoughtful blue eyes, a straight finely-chiselled nose, and a full eloquent mouth (the whole overshadowed by an unusually lofty brow, from which, particularly over the temples, the hair had noticeably receded)--possessed that unconscious ease of manner and unassertive masterfulness of bearing, which derive on the one hand from breeding, and on the other from a constant habit of preoccupation with external problems, that is unfavourable to any self-concern. As his alert vision took in the details of his surroundings, including the person of Sir Joseph himself, on whom he appeared to cast only the most casual sidelong glances, it was clear that his mind, far from being occupied with internal questionings, was measuring even then the probable extent to which this visit might serve some ultimate important purpose upon which the whole gravity and earnestness of his being seemed to be concentrated; and if his solemn features occasionally relaxed into a smile, it was precisely the habitual gravity of his mien that lent his passing levity such extraordinarily persuasive merriness.

It was chiefly Lord Henry's air of preoccupation that set Sir Joseph so quickly at his ease. For although the baronet was familiar enough with the sons of peers and peers themselves,--for had he not a number of them on his various boards?--there was, as we have seen, something more than mere rank in his youthful visitor to disturb him.

While the first courteous platitudes were being exchanged, Sir Joseph quietly took stock of his companion, and was for a brief moment a little perturbed by the latter's unconventional attire.

We have noticed that though he was young, Lord Henry's hair receded a little from his brow, and made it appear even loftier than it actually was. Between the high bald temples, however, a wisp of stiff fair hair still remained over the centre of the young man's forehead, somewhat resembling that seen in the portraits of Napoleon, and with this tuft his long well-shaped and sensitive fingers would play continuously while he spoke, with the result that he constantly bowed his head.

Occasionally, therefore, when his customary gravity gave way for a space and his face was irradiated with a smile or a laugh, an expression of such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.

Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment almost offensive.

It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before him.

"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the strength of the friendship you bear her."

He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.

"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.

"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than five-and-twenty.

"She is very fond of you," Sir Joseph proceeded earnestly, beginning to feel, for the first time, not only that Mrs. Delarayne's infatuation was clearly justified, but also that young St. Maur had probably been right in his remarks concerning Charles I.'s creations. It was strange to recognise the evidences of unusual wisdom in such a childish face; it reminded him vaguely of what he had heard or dreamt of Chinese mandarins,--evidently such phenomena were possible.

"She's an amazingly captivating woman," muttered Lord Henry, still pulling at the tuft of hair over his brow. "Her blank refusal to accept the fact of her advancing years is the most wonderful and at the same time the most pathetic thing about her."

Sir Joseph, with an expression of deep curiosity, leant heavily over the right arm of his chair, and stared expectantly at his visitor.