They were uplifted, helping, deprecating, running through an endless variety of gestures, possessed of an eloquence all their own. His eyebrows were black, pointed, halfway up his forehead, and they delicately echoed every emotion that so well-trained a servant would permit himself.

Half asleep, Yerington suffered Jenkins to disrobe him.

"Your lordship will rest?" suggested his gentleman. Faith, not I," answered Yerington, "leave that to the grave, Jenkins. My bath, and my silver grey frock, and the devil take me if I don't make two days out of one, and the almanac, lying old woman, be damned!"

An hour later, his face white with soap-suds, he sat patiently while, stroke by stroke, Mr. Jenkins removed the lather with his discriminating razor.

Exit

"Egad," said Yerington, from one side of his mouth, "if ever I repent my sins I'll first dismiss you. Jenkins, and enter ashes and a hair shirt. To be shaved by you is a luxury."

Jenkins' hands hinted deprecation.

"Your lordship is pleased to flatter," he said. "Flatter! Not I," answered Yerington.

Mr. Jenkins delicately powdered his master's face and considered.

"And now," he said, contemplating him with an air of pride, as if he were a creature of his creating, “what patches?"

"Burn me, if I know," yawned Yerington. "Jenkins, my man, you're going off. Would you have me lend my mind to patches?

"No, your lordship," answered Jenkins soothingly. "That is my affair; and yet there's a world of eloquence in patches."

He opened a gold patch-box.

Here, for example, is one for a Parliamentarian.” Accustomed to the little man's vagaries and enjoying them, Yerington rolled a speculative eye at it.

66

Too fine for me, Jenkins," he said. You overshoot me."

"A round one, your lordship," exclaimed the valet triumphantly. "A solid, serious round one, to be placed near the eye, to give it force and eloquence."

"Gad, or by the mouth to hint a full stop," added Yerington. And now for a soldier?"

"There's little finesse in that," mused Jenkins. "A grenade or a cannon placed squarely on the jaw. And now, my lord, pardon a liberty, but what would you suggest for a lover?

The mirror was facing Yerington. In it he cast a shrewd look at the little man, but he perceived that his face was as innocent as an untroubled pool. His words, however, had drawn the fingers of memory sharply across the strings which had been struck so discordantly and often at White's the night before. He frowned as he thought of the Lady Caroline Dashwood.

Jenkins continued meditating, with his head on one side.

"As to the lover, instruct me," answered his lordship, after he had reflected a moment.

""Tis a matter of much delicacy," answered Jenkins, and as he continued to speak he tallied on his fingers. First, there is the ardent lover; then there is the languid lover; and then there is just the little affair of gallantry, which leaves the coming on and the going off in the hands of circumstance. For the ardent lover,hearts, Cupid's bows and love-knots; for the languid lover, a torch reversed, would not be out of place." There was an eloquent pause. Jenkins was enjoying his own conceits.

"And now for the little affair of gallantry?" queried his master, with some curiosity.

"That requires nice management, my lord.

What

say you to a chaise and pair? It might mean a retreat, an advance, or an elopement. There's safety in a chaise." "No chaises," said Yerington. "A parliamentary full stop, I prithee."

CHAPTER IX

LADY CAROLINE UNMASKS

As in friendship, so in love, we are often happier from ignorance than knowledge.

-LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

LADY CAROLINE sat in her dressing-room under the hands of her tire-woman, Dorcas. The latter's skilled fingers were arranging puffs and curls with fine effect above her white forehead and arched eyebrows, but Lady Caroline's tawny eyes smiled no approval. She stared at herself in the mirror and no flaw escaped her, though her thoughts were busily employed. A letter from her lord and master lay carelessly upon the dressing-table amid a collection of pomade and salve boxes, white lead, carnation and a litter of curl-papers.

This letter was in reality an inexorable guide-post that told Lady Caroline she had come to a parting of the ways-in short, that she must now play with her cards upon the table.

She had refused herself that morning to all the gentlemen who often drank their chocolate with her during her toilet. She was persuaded that Lord Yerington would call and she intended to see him alone. When, however, her black boy announced him to her, she did not change countenance, though some instinct warned her that this interview would be prolific of results. With her nerves upon the rack she had begun to long for some change, even a disastrous one, anything but this unwavering demeanour that maddened her.

As Lord Yerington entered the room she did not turn

round, but looked at him in the mirror. She extended him her hand, over which he bent his head.

"Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant," he murmured. "I'll swear this morning Venus herself would cry you mercy."

Her reply was a nod to Dorcas, who vanished.

Alone at the dressing-table she tended an already perfected eyebrow with an ivory comb.

"I protest, Yerington," she drawled, languidly, "I'm shocked to death. What is this I hear of your losing twelve thousand pounds at White's last night?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I beg your ladyship's approval of my moderation. Think how easily it might have been twenty thousand."

She was contemplating her profile in the glass, by the assistance of her hand-mirror, hoping at the same time. that he might note its proportion. She shook her head at him reproachfully.

"I fear you're a sad rake," she said with a sigh. "I have no taste for solitude," he answered.

"You see my room is empty," she went on. "I denied myself even to that fascinating young spark, Captain Darlington, and to all the others, that I might have a quiet half-hour to tell you how horror-struck I was. Dorcas brought me the news with my chocolate."

Yerington glanced about the room at the empty chairs. "Your ladyship is too kind," he said, bowing with his hat crushed between his hands. "Faith, I believe from your lips I could take reproof before half of White's, for they carry their own healing."

"La," she answered, a sharp note running through her voice, "why these fair words to your old friend's wife? They'd serve you better-elsewhere."

"Not so," he replied, "elsewhere fair words are seldom rooted."