Captain Ware grinned at him, but stepping across the room grasped him urgently by the shoulders, and shook him, saying: “Adolphus, I think I will murder you!”

The Duke laughed, wrenching the big hands from his shoulders, and holding them hard. “I’m told you’re already thought to have done so! Oh, but I am glad to see you, Gideon! How the devil did you know where I was?”

“I have tracked you all the way from Arlesey, my abominable cousin—and a rare dance you have led me!”

“From Arlesey!” The Duke stared up at him, the liveliest astonishment in his face. “Good—God, how comes this about? You cannot have known that I was there!”

“But I did know it. Your amiable friend Liversedge very handsomely offered to sell you to me. He thought I might like to succeed to your dignities. I don’t know what mischief you have been brewing, Adolphus, but if ever you cause me to lose so much sleep on your account again I will make you sorry you were ever born!”

“No, that you won’t!” suddenly interjected Tom, who had been gazing upon this scene with strong disapprobation. He doubled his fists, and eyed Captain Ware belligerently. “I won’t let anybody touch him, and so I warn you!”

Gideon was amused. “Famous! Now, had I known you had such a stout bodyguard, Adolphus, I need not have worried about you!”

“Well, you let him alone, for I mean it!” said Tom.

The Duke laughed. “No, no, Tom, you must not pick a quarrel with my big cousin, for he takes very good care of me, I promise you! Gideon, I must make you known to Mr. Mamble, who is Tom’s father. Mr. Mamble, Captain Ware!”

Mr. Mamble got up ponderously from his chair, and executed a bow. Tom, a fanatical light in his eye, demanded: “Is he a soldier?”

“Yes, he is,” said the Duke.

“Cavalry?” said Tom anxiously.

“Lifeguards!” said the Duke, in thrilling accents.

Tom drew a deep, worshipful breath, and uttered: “And you never told me! Sir, were you ever in a battle?”

“I was in a skirmish at Genappe, and in a battle at Waterloo,” replied Gideon.

“Wounded?” Tom asked hopefully.

“Just a scratch,” said Gideon.

“Tell me all about it, sir, please!”

“Yes, some other time he will,” said the Duke, recklessly committing his cousin. “But not, I think, tonight, for it is growing late, and—” He broke off suddenly, catching sight of his valet, standing in the doorway, and dumbly regarding him. “Nettlebed! But, good God, how in the world—?”

“I brought him along with me,” explained Gideon. “Found him with Matt, in Baldock, hunting for you.”

“My lord!” said Nettlebed, in a queer voice. “My lord! I thank God I’ve found your Grace! I shall never forgive myself, never!”

“Oh, no, no, no!” said the Duke, laying a hand on his arm, and shaking it playfully. “Now, Nettlebed, pray don’t be upset for nothing! You see I am very well! Yes, and extremely glad to have you with me again, for I have missed you very much, I assure you. But I do wish you had not left London! I sent an express to Scriven last night, desiring him to tell you to come to me, with all my gear!”

“My lord, I had to do it!” Nettlebed said. “But I will never do anything your Grace does not wish again, if only your Grace will forgive me!”

“But I have nothing in the world to forgive,” the Duke said gently. “Oh, are you thinking how cross you were with me on the morning I ran away from you all? Well, I meant you to be cross, so perhaps it is I who should be begging your pardon. Now, do pray go and set all to rights in my room, Nettlebed! I am not the least hand at keeping my traps in order, and I shall be very glad to have them tidied for me again.”

This request had the desired effect of making Nettlebed pull himself together. His eye brightened, and he assured the Duke that he had no longer any need to trouble his head over such matters. Before he left the room, he swept the cloth from the table, which the waiter had neglected to do, made up the fire, and straightened the cushions on the sofa, as though in the performance of these acts of service his wounded soul found balm. After that, he withdrew, but saw to it that his presence should still be felt by sending up the waiter with another bottle of port, and one of brandy.

The Duke, who wanted to be alone with his cousin, was then guilty of a piece of strategy. He told Tom that it was time he went off to bed. This aroused Mr. Mamble from some dream of grandeur, and he not only endorsed the command, but said that it was time he went back to the White Horse. He seemed undecided whether to remove from this house to the Pelican on the morrow, or to wrest the unwilling Tom from the Duke. The possibility of having Mr. Mamble as a fellow-guest wrought so powerfully on the Duke’s mind that the first thing he said to his cousin, when he returned from seeing one Mamble off, and the other to his bedchamber, was: “There’s only one thing to be done! I’ll send them both to Cheyney! I promised Tom he should go there to shoot, and I expect his father would like of all things to stay in a Duke’s house.”

Gideon grinned. “No doubt he would! What very queer company you are keeping, Adolphus! I wonder how Mamble and Liversedge will deal together?”

The Duke stared at him. “Liversedge?”

“Not knowing what else to do with him,” explained Gideon. “I have left him at Cheyney, in Wragby’s care—”

“Gideon, you have not brought that fat rogue here with you?” the Duke said incredulously.

“But I have,” replied Gideon. “He awaits your judgment, my little one.”

“But I don’t want him!” objected the Duke, looking harassed. “Really, Gideon, it is quite absurd of you! I have enough on my hands without your adding Liversedge to the rest!”

Gideon was amused. “Are you aware that he not only kidnapped you, but would have been prepared to murder you, for a suitable recompense?”

“Yes, you told me so. I am glad I did not know it while I lay in that cellar! I should have been frightened out of my wits! I supposed that ransom was what was wanted of me, but now I come to think of it the other fellow did utter a number of dark threats, which I set no store by. Did Liversedge really think you would pay him to murder me? He is the most amusing villain!”

Gideon regarded him with a flickering smile. “Am I to understand that you are going to condone his villainy?”

“Well, what else can I do?” asked the Duke reasonably. “If I hand him over to justice, what a stir there would be! Now, Gideon, if you had been captured by a veritable child’s trick, and stowed away in a cellar, would you wish the whole world to know of it?”

“I would not, I own. At the same time, I should desire to discourage any more such attempts.”

“Oh, I am not so green as to fall a victim twice! And I burned down his house, or, at any rate, the only lodging he seemed to have, and took Belinda away from him, so I think he has been pretty well punished, don’t you?”

“I must have a more vengeful disposition than you, Adolphus. No.”

The Duke smiled. “Well, he did you no service, after all. But I cannot but feel that he did me a great deal of service. Only wait until I have told you the sum of my adventures! You will be bound to agree that but for Liversedge nothing in the least out of the way would ever have happened to me. No, no, it would be the shabbiest thing to hand him over to the Law! Besides, he made me laugh!” He looked speculatively at his cousin. “And if you forced him to lead you to my prison, Gideon, I will hazard a guess that you used him very roughly first.”

“Yes, was it not odd of me?” retorted Gideon. “But this will not do, my child! He is not less villainous for making us laugh. If you had not written to me from Baldock, I should not have known where to look for you, and all might have gone very ill indeed with you.”

“Nothing of the sort!” said the Duke, with one of his impish smiles. “You did not rescue me from my cellar, Gideon! I rescued myself! You can have no notion of how much I am set up in my own esteem! Liversedge shall go free. I have more important things to think about.”

Gideon poured himself out a glass of port, and sat down, stretching his long legs before him. “Very well, let it be as you please! But what is to be done with him? He appears to be penniless, and has informed me, with his engaging candour, that of all towns in the world Bath is the one where he least desires to show his face. It would not surprise me if you found it hard to be rid of him. He has effrontery enough for anything!”

“Oh, let him make himself useful at Cheyney, until I have time to consider what must be done with him!” said the Duke carelessly. “If I can induce Mamble to take Tom there, they will be glad of an extra servant in the house. I daresay he may make an excellent butler.”

This made Gideon choke over his port, but when he had recovered he admitted that there was much in what his cousin said, as well he knew, since the moment of his reaching Reading on the previous evening Liversedge had taken it upon himself to act as a major-domo. “I have no doubt he was intent only on softening my hard heart, but I will own that no one could have been more zealous to discover some trace of you, Adolphus. In fact, I owe it to him that we did at last pick up the scent, for when no one could be brought to remember a little fellow in an olive-green coat, he enquired for your inamorata, describing her in terms which has given me an overmastering desire to meet her. There was no difficulty then: no one, it seems, could fail to remember the lady!”

“No, very true! She is the most dazzling girl! You shall certainly see her, but mind, Gideon! you are not to seduce her with promises of a purple silk gown!”