“I told Barker once that Claudius was a gentleman, every inch of him, and I should think that was enough.  As if I did not know—­it’s too bad, upon my word!” And the ducal forehead reddened angrily.  The fact was that both he and his sister had taken an unaccountable fancy to this strange Northman, with his quiet ways and his unaffected courtesy, and at the present moment they would have quarrelled with their best friends rather than hear a word against him.  “My guest, too, and on my yacht,” he went on; and it did his sister good to see him angry—­“it’s true he brought him, and introduced him to me.”  Then a bright idea struck him.  “And if Claudius were not a gentleman, what the deuce right had Barker to bring him to me at all, eh?  Wasn’t it his business to find out?  My word!  I would like to ask him that, and if I find him I will.”  Lady Victoria had no intention of making mischief between her brother and Mr. Barker.  But she did not like the American, and she thought Barker was turning the Duke into a miner, or a farmer, or a greengrocer, or something—­it was not quite clear.  But she wished him out of the way, and fate had given her a powerful weapon.  It was just that sort of double-handedness that the Duke most hated of all things in the earth.  Moreover, he knew his sister never exaggerated, and that what she had told him was of necessity perfectly true.

Woe to Mr. Silas B. Barker junior if he came in the Duke’s way that evening!

“I suppose he is coming to dinner?” said the Duke after a pause, during which his anger had settled into a comfortable ferocity.

“No,” said Lady Victoria; “he sent some flowers and a note of regret.”

“Well—­I am glad of that.  Would you like to go for a drive, Vick?”

“Yes, of all things.  I have not been here since I was married”—­which was about eighteen months, but she had already caught that matronly phrase—­“and I want to see what they have been doing to the Park.”

“All right.  We’ll take Claudius, if he is anywhere about the place.”

“Of course,” said Lady Victoria.  And so the brother and sister prepared to soothe their ruffled feelings by making much of the man who was “a gentleman.”  But they were right, for Claudius was all they thought him, and a great deal more too, as they discovered in the sequel.

Having driven in the Park, the Duke insisting that Claudius should sit in the place of honour with Lady Victoria, and having criticised to their satisfaction the few equipages they met—­for it was too early for New York—­they went back to their hotel, and dispersed to dress for dinner.  The Duke, as he had told his sister, had invited his friend to dine.  They all sat together waiting his arrival.  Punctual to the moment, the door opened, and Mr. Horace Bellingham beamed upon the assembled party.  Ay, but he was a sight to do good to the souls of the hungry and thirsty, and of the poor, and in misery!