“You had better drink apollinaris.  Grog will go to your head.  I never saw you so angry.”  The Duke pressed the electric button.

“I loathe to drink of the water,” said Barker, tearing off the end of a cigar with his teeth.  The Duke had seen a man in Egypt who bit off the heads of black snakes, and he thought of him at that moment.  The steward appeared, and when the arrangements were made, the ocean in which Barker proposed to drown his cares was found to consist of a small glass of a very diluted concoction of champagne, bitters, limes, and soda water.  The Duke had some, and thought it very good.

“It is not a question of language,” said Barker, returning to the conversation.  “They eluded us and met.  That is all.”

“By her wish, apparently,” said the other.

“We must arrange a plan of action,” said Barker.

“Why?  If she has not refused him, it is all right.  We have nothing more to do with it.  Let them go their own way.”

“You are an old friend of the Countess’s, are you not?” asked the American.  “Yes—­very well, would you like to see her married to Claudius?”

“Upon my word,” said the Duke, “I cannot see that I have anything to say about it.  But since you ask me, I see no possible objection.  He is a gentleman—­has money, heaps of it—­if she likes him, let her marry him if she pleases.  It is very proper that she should marry again; she has no children, and the Russian estates are gone to the next heir.  I only wanted to save her from any inconvenience.  I did not want Claudius to be hanging after her, if she did not want him.  She does.  There is an end of it.”  O glorious English Common Sense!  What a fine thing you are when anybody gets you by the right end.

“You may be right,” said Barker, with a superior air that meant “you are certainly wrong.”  “But would Claudius be able to give her the position in foreign society—­”

“Society be damned,” said the Duke.  “Do you think the widow of Alexis cannot command society?  Besides, Claudius is a gentleman, and that is quite enough.”

“I suppose he is,” said Mr. Barker, with an air of regret.

“Suppose?  There is no supposing about it.  He is.”  And the Duke looked at his friend as if he would have said, “If I, a real, palpable, tangible, hereditary duke, do not know a gentleman when I see one, what can you possibly know about it, I would like to inquire?” And that settled the matter.

But Mr. Barker was uneasy in his mind.  An idea was at work there which was diametrically opposed to the union of Claudius and Margaret, and day by day, as he watched the intimacy growing back into its old proportions, he ground his gold-filled teeth with increasing annoyance.  He sought opportunities for saying and doing things that might curtail the length of those hours when Claudius sat at her side, ostensibly reading.  Ostensibly?  Yes—­the first day or two after she had allowed him to come