It might be thought that Lord Woldo was, as they say, on velvet.  But the velvet, if it could be so described, was not of so rich and comfortable a pile after all.  For Lord Woldo’s situation involved many and heavy responsibilities and was surrounded by grave dangers.  He was the representative of an old order going down in the unforeseeable welter of twentieth-century politics.  Numbers of thoughtful students of English conditions spent much of their time in wondering what would happen one day to the Lord Woldos of England.  And when a really great strike came, and a dozen ex-artisans met in a private room of a West End hotel, and decided, without consulting Lord Woldo or the Prime Minister or anybody, that the commerce of the country should be brought to a standstill, these thoughtful students perceived that even Lord Woldo’s situation was no more secure than other people’s; in fact that it was rather less so.

There could be no doubt that the circumstances of Lord Woldo furnished him with food for thought—­and very indigestible food too....  Why, at least one hundred sprightly female creatures were being brought up in the hope of marrying him.  And they would all besiege him, and he could only marry one of them—­at once!

Now as Edward Henry stopped as near to No. 262 as the presence of a waiting two-horse carriage permitted, he saw a grey-haired and blue-cloaked woman solemnly descending the steps of the portico of No. 262.  She was followed by another similar woman, and watched by a butler and a footman at the summit of the steps and by a footman on the pavement and by the coachman on the box of the carriage.  She carried a thick and lovely white shawl, and in this shawl was Lord Woldo and all his many and heavy responsibilities.  It was his fancy to take the air thus, in the arms of a woman.  He allowed himself to be lifted into the open carriage, and the door of the carriage was shut; and off went the two ancient horses, slowly, and the two adult fat men and the two mature spinsters, and the vehicle weighing about a ton; and Lord Woldo’s morning promenade had begun.

“Follow that!” said Edward Henry to the chauffeur and nipped into his brougham again.  Nobody had told him that the being in the shawl was Lord Woldo, but he was sure that it must be so.

In twenty minutes he saw Lord Woldo being carried to and fro amid the groves of Hyde Park (one of the few bits of London earth that did not belong to him or to his more or less distant connections) while the carriage waited.  Once Lord Woldo sat on a chair, but the chief nurse’s lap was between him and the chair-seat.  Both nurses chattered to him in Kensingtonian accents, but he offered no replies.

“Go back to 262,” said Edward Henry to his chauffeur.

Arrived again in Eaton Square, he did not give himself time to be imposed upon by the grandiosity of the square in general, nor of No. 262 in particular.  He just ran up the steps and rang the visitors’ bell.