view of things.  People who cross the Atlantic in yachts are very different from the regular crowds that go backwards and forwards in the great lines.  They are seldom in a hurry, and have generally made a good many voyages before.  Perhaps the Duke himself, in his quality of host, was the most uncomfortable man on board.  He did not see how the Countess and the Doctor could possibly survive being shut up together in a small vessel, for he was convinced that Barker knew all about their difficulty.  If he had not liked Claudius so much, he would have been angry at him for daring to propose to this beautiful young friend of his.  But then Claudius was Claudius, and even the Duke saw something in him besides his wealth which gave him a right to aspire to the highest.

“I can’t make out,” the Duke once said to Barker, “where Claudius got his manners.  He never does anything the least odd; and he always seems at his ease.”

“I only know he came to Heidelberg ten years ago, and that he is about thirty.  He got his manners somewhere when he was a boy.”

“Of course, there are lots of good people in Sweden,” said the Duke; “but they all have titles, just as they do in Germany.  And Claudius has no title.”

“No,” said Barker pensively, “I never heard him say he had a title.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” answered the Duke.  “But I have been a good deal about Sweden, and he is not in the least like a respectable Swedish burgher.  Did you not tell me that his uncle, who left him all that money, was your father’s partner in business?”

“Yes, I remember once or twice hearing the old gentleman say he had a nephew.  But he was a silent man, though he piled up the dollars.”

“Claudius is a silent man too,” said the Duke.

“And he has sailed into the dollars ready piled.”

But this was before the eventful day just described; and the Duke had forgotten the conversation, though he had repeated the reflections to himself, and found them true.  To tell the truth, Claudius looked more like a duke than his host, for the sea air had blown away the professorial cobwebs; and, after all, it did not seem so very incongruous in the Englishman’s eyes that his handsome guest should fall in love with the Countess Margaret.  Only, it was very uncomfortable; and he did not know exactly what he should do with them for the next ten days.  Perhaps he ought to devote himself to the Countess, and thus effectually prevent any approaches that Claudius might meditate.  Yes—­that was probably his duty.  He wished he might ask counsel of his sister; but then she did not know, and it seemed unfair, and altogether rather a betrayal of confidence or something—­at all events, it was not right, and he would not do it.  Barker might be wrong too.  And so the poor Duke, muddle-headed and weary with this storm in his tea-cup, and with having his tea-cup come to grief in a real storm into the bargain, turned into his deck-cabin to “sleep on it,” thinking the morning would bring counsel.