“He can be trusted,” she said.  “I feel sure he can be trusted.  He loves them.  He could not love them so much and not be able to take care of them.”  And as she looked at him in frank appeal for sympathy, Lord Dunholm felt that for the moment she looked like a tall, queenly child.

But pleased as he was, he presently gave up his place at her side to Westholt.  He must not be a selfish old fellow and monopolise her.  He hoped they would see each other often, he said charmingly.  He thought she would be sure to like Dunholm, which was really a thoroughly English old place, marked by all the features she seemed so much attracted by.  There were some beautiful relics of the past there, and some rather shocking ones—­certain dungeons, for instance, and a gallows mount, on which in good old times the family gallows had stood.  This had apparently been a working adjunct to the domestic arrangements of every respectable family, and that irritating persons should dangle from it had been a simple domestic necessity, if one were to believe old stories.

“It was then that nobles were regarded with respect,” he said, with his fine smile.  “In the days when a man appeared with clang of arms and with javelins and spears before, and donjon keeps in the background, the attitude of bent knees and awful reverence were the inevitable results.  When one could hang a servant on one’s own private gallows, or chop off his hand for irreverence or disobedience—­obedience and reverence were a rule.  Now, a month’s notice is the extremity of punishment, and the old pomp of armed servitors suggests comic opera.  But we can show you relics of it at Dunholm.”

He joined his wife and began at once to make himself so delightful to Rosy that she ceased to be afraid of him, and ended by talking almost gaily of her London visit.

Betty and Westholt walked together.  The afternoon being lovely, they had all sauntered into the park to look at certain views, and the sun was shining between the trees.  Betty thought the young man almost as charming as his father, which was saying much.  She had fallen wholly in love with Lord Dunholm—­with his handsome, elderly face, his voice, his erect bearing, his fine smile, his attraction of manner, his courteous ease and wit.  He was one of the men who stood for the best of all they had been born to represent.  Her own father, she felt, stood for the best of all such an American as himself should be.  Lord Westholt would in time be what his father was.  He had inherited from him good looks, good feeling, and a sense of humour.  Yes, he had been given from the outset all that the other man had been denied.  She was thinking of Mount Dunstan as “the other man,” and spoke of him.

“You know Lord Mount Dunstan?” she said.

Westholt hesitated slightly.

“Yes—­and no,” he answered, after the hesitation.  “No one knows him very well.  You have not met him?” with a touch of surprise in his tone.