"He"s got something on his mind," mentally commented the duke. "He wonders if he will tell it to me."

"And there"s times when you"d give half you"ve got to be able to talk a thing out and put it up to some one else for a while. I could do it with her. That"s why I said I wish to G.o.d that she was here."

"You have learned to know how to keep still," the duke said. "So have I. We learned it in different schools, but we have both learned."

As he was saying the words, he thought he was going to hear something; when he had finished saying them he knew that he would without a doubt. T. Tembarom made a quick move in his seat; he lost a shade of color and cleared his throat as he bent forward, casting a glance at the backs of the coachman and footman on the high seat above them.

"Can those fellows hear me?" he asked.

"No," the duke answered; "if you speak as you are speaking now."

"You are the biggest man about here," the young man went on. "You stand for everything that English people care for, and you were born knowing all the things I don"t. I"ve been carrying a big load for quite a while, and I guess I"m not big enough to handle it alone, perhaps. Anyhow, I want to be sure I"m not making fool mistakes. The worst of it is that I"ve got to keep still if I"m right, and I"ve got to keep still if I"m wrong. I"ve got to keep still, anyhow."

"I learned to hold my tongue in places where, if I had not held it, I might have plunged nations into bloodshed," the duke said. "Tell me all you choose."

As a result of which, by the time their drive had ended and they returned to Stone Hover, he had told him, and, the duke sat in his corner of the carriage with an unusual light in his eyes and a flush of somewhat excited color on his cheek.

"You"re a queer fellow, T. Tembarom," he said when they parted in the drawing-room after taking tea. "You exhilarate me. You make me laugh.

If I were an emotional person, you would at moments make me cry.

There"s an affecting uprightness about you. You"re rather a fine fellow too, "pon my life." Putting a waxen, gout-knuckled old hand on his shoulder, and giving him a friendly push which was half a pat, he added, "You are, by G.o.d!"

And after his guest had left him, the duke stood for some minutes gazing into the fire with a complicated smile and the air of a man who finds himself quaintly enriched.

"I have had ambitions in the course of my existence-- several of them," he said, "but even in over-vaulting moments never have I aspired to such an alt.i.tude as this--to be, as it were, part of a melodrama. One feels that one scarcely deserves it."

CHAPTER XXVII

"Mr.Temple Barholm seems in better spirits," Lady Mallowe said to Captain Palliser as they walked on the terrace in the starlight dusk after dinner.

Captain Palliser took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the glowing end of it.

"Has it struck you that he has been in low spirits?" he inquired speculatively. "One does not usually connect him with depression."

"Certainly not with depression. He"s an extraordinary creature. One would think he would perish from lack of the air he is used to breathing--New York air."

"He is not perishing. He"s too shrewd," returned Palliser. "He mayn"t exactly like all this, but he"s getting something out of it."

"He is not getting much of what he evidently wants most. I am out of all patience," said Lady Mallowe.

Her acquaintance with Palliser had lasted through a number of years.

They argued most matters from the same basis of reasoning. They were at times almost candid with each other. It may be acknowledged, however, that of the two Lady Mallowe was the more inclined to verge on self-revelation. This was of course because she was the less clever and had more temper. Her temper, she had, now and then, owned bitterly to herself, had played her tricks. Captain Palliser"s temper never did this. It was Lady Mallowe"s temper which spoke now, but she did not in the least mind his knowing that Joan was exasperating her beyond endurance. He knew the whole situation well enough to be aware of it without speech on her part. He had watched similar situations several times before.

"Her manner toward him is, to resort to New York colloquialisms, `the limit,"" Palliser said quietly. "Is it your idea that his less good spirits have been due to Lady Joan"s ingenuities? They are ingenious, you know."

"They are devilish," exclaimed her mother." She treads him in the mire and sails about professing to be conducting herself flawlessly. She is too clever for me," she added with bitterness.

Palliser laughed softly.

"But very often you have been too clever for her," he suggested. "For my part, I don"t quite see how you got her here."

Lady Mallowe became not almost, but entirely, candid.

"Upon the whole, I don"t quite know myself. I believe she really came for some mysterious reason of her own."

"That is rather my impression," said Palliser. "She has got something up her sleeve, and so has he."

"He!" Lady Mallowe quite e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the word. "She always has. That"s her abominable secretive way. But he! T. Tembarom with something up his sleeve! One can"t imagine it."

"Almost everybody has. I found that out long years ago," said Palliser, looking at his cigar end again as if consulting it. "Since I arrived at the conclusion, I always take it for granted, and look out for it. I"ve become rather clever in following such things up, and I have taken an unusual interest in T. Tembarom from the first."

Lady Mallowe turned her handsome face, much softened by an enwreathing gauze scarf, toward him anxiously.

"Do you think his depression, or whatever it is, means Joan?" she asked.

"If he is depressed by her, you need not be discouraged," smiled Palliser. "The time to lose hope would be when, despite her ingenuities, he became entirely cheerful. But," he added after a moment of pause, "I have an idea there is some other little thing."

"Do you suppose that some young woman he has left behind in New York is demanding her rights?" said Lady Mallowe, with annoyance. "That is exactly the kind of thing Joan would like to hear, and so entirely natural. Some shop-girl or other."

"Quite natural, as you say; but he would scarcely be running up to London and consulting Scotland Yard about her," Palliser answered.

"Scotland Yard!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his companion. "How in the world did you find that out?"

Captain Palliser did not explain how he had done it. Presumably his knowledge was due to the adroitness of the system of "following such things up."

"Scotland Yard has also come to him," he went on. "Did you chance to see a red-faced person who spent a morning with him last week?"

"He looked like a butcher, and I thought he might be one of his friends," Lady Mallowe said.

"I recognized the man. He is an extremely clever detective, much respected for his resources in the matter of following clues which are so attenuated as to be scarcely clues at all."

"Clues have no connection with Joan," said Lady Mallowe, still more annoyed. "All London knows her miserable story."

"Have you--" Captain Palliser"s tone was thoughtful, "--has any one ever seen Mr. Strangeways?"

"No. Can you imagine anything more absurdly romantic? A creature without a memory, shut up in a remote wing of a palace like this, as if he were the Man with the Iron Mask. Romance is not quite compatible with T. Tembarom."

"It is so incongruous that it has entertained me to think it over a good deal," remarked Palliser. "He leaves everything to one"s imagination. All one knows is that he isn"t a relative; that he isn"t mad, but only too nervous to see or be seen. Queer situation. I"ve found there is always a reason for things; the queerer they are, the more sure it is that there"s a reason. What is the reason Strangeways is kept here, and where would a detective come in? Just on general principles I"m rather going into the situation. There"s a reason, and it would be amusing to find it out. Don"t you think so?"

He spoke casually, and Lady Mallowe"s answer was casual, though she knew from experience that he was not as casual as he chose to seem. He was clever enough always to have certain reasons of his own which formulated themselves into interests large and small. He knew things about people which were useful. Sometimes quite small things were useful. He was always well behaved, and no one had ever accused him of bringing pressure to bear; but it was often possible for him to sell things or buy things or bring about things in circ.u.mstances which would have presented difficulties to other people. Lady Mallowe knew from long experience all about the exigencies of cases when "needs must," and she was not critical. Temple Barholm as the estate of a distant relative and T. Tembarom as its owner were not a.s.sets to deal with indifferently. When a man made a respectable living out of people who could be persuaded to let you make investments for them, it was not an unbusinesslike idea to be in the position to advise an individual strongly.

"It"s quite natural that you should feel an interest," she answered.

"But the romantic stranger is too romantic, though I will own Scotland Yard is a little odd."