True, he had never heard Cecil breathe a syllable that hinted at embarrassment; but these things get known with tolerable accuracy about town, and those who were acquainted, as most people in their set were, with the impoverished condition of the Royallieu exchequer, however hidden it might be under an unabated magnificence of living, were well aware also that none of the old Viscount’s sons could have any safe resources to guarantee them from as rapid a ruin as they liked to consummate.  Indeed, it had of late been whispered that it was probable, despite the provisions of the entail, that all the green wealth and Norman Beauty of Royallieu itself would come into the market.  Hence the Seraph, the best-hearted and most generous-natured of men, was worried by an anxiety and a despondency which he would never have indulged, most assuredly, on his own account, as he rode away from Iffesheim after the defeat of his Corps’ champion.

He was expected to dinner with one of the most lovely of foreign Ambassadresses, and was to go with her afterward to the Vaudeville, at the pretty golden theater, where a troupe from the Bouffes were playing; but he felt anything but in the mood for even her bewitching and—­in an marriageable sense—­safe society, as he stopped his horse at his own hotel, the Badischer Hof.

As he swung himself out of saddle, a well-dressed, quiet, rather handsome little man drew near respectfully, lifting his hat—­it was M. Baroni.  The Seraph had never seen the man in his life that he knew of, but he was himself naturally frank, affable, courteous, and never given to hedging himself behind the pale of his high rank; provided you did not bore him, you might always get access to him easily enough—­the Duke used to tell him, too easily.

Therefore, when Ezra Baroni deferentially approached with, “The Most Noble the Marquis of Rockingham, I think?” the Seraph, instead of leaving the stranger there discomfited, nodded and paused with his inconsequent good nature; thinking how much less bosh it would be if everybody could call him, like his family and his comrades, “Rock.”

“That is my name,” he answered.  “I do not know you.  Do you want anything of me?”

The Seraph had a vivid terror of people who “wanted him,” in the subscription, not the police, sense of the word; and had been the victim of frauds innumerable.

“I wished,” returned Baroni respectfully, but with sufficient independence to conciliate his auditor, whom he saw at a glance cringing subservience would disgust, “to have the opportunity of asking your lordship a very simple question.”

The Seraph looked a little bored, a little amused.

“Well, ask it, my good fellow; you have your opportunity!” he said impatiently, yet good-humored still.

“Then would you, my lord,” continued the Jew with his strong Hebrew-German accent, “be so good as to favor me by saying whether this signature be your own?”