The swing doors leading to the smoking-room of the fashionable club in London fell back with a slightly louder thud than usual, and more than one occupant of the room looked up--looked up, however, to smile, for the newcomer was a universal favourite. It was Marmaduke Muir, fresh from one of his many disappearances, for he was quartered at the new camp of Aldershot and his London visits were generally but a passing flash on his way to find sport in the counties. At seven-and-thirty he showed almost more youthful than he had done at seven-and-twenty, for he was thinner, more alert, and the laughter in his face seemed to belong to him more absolutely. For the rest he was handsome beyond compare, and dressed faultlessly in a taste that had sobered itself from those early days in England when Marrion Paul had found him flamboyant. There was still a slight exuberance in the carnation in his buttonhole and the immense size of the cigar he drew out of his case; but the case itself was simple, and there was a simplicity about his whole bearing which disarmed criticism.

"What you b'in after, old chap?" said an occupant of an armchair, laying down the "Illustrated London News," in which he had been reading the pros and cons of beard and moustachios as against clean shaving. He felt his own chin doubtfully as he looked at Marmaduke's upper lip; but then he, of course, was a soldier.

"Killin' somethin', I bet," yawned another. "What was it, Duke?"

"Not ladies, anyhow," put in a third. "Our Adonis is a regular misogynist; and yet, just look at his letters--faugh! they make the place smell like Truefitt's."

"Better than your fags, anyhow, Mac!" laughed Marmaduke, as he took the pile of notes and letters which the attendant had brought in on a salver. Then, as he threw himself into the most comfortable chair vacant, he held up half the bundle with a gay--"Anyone like them? They're all invitations, I expect, and I have to go back to-night!"

"And moneylenders, Muir! Don't forget Moses!" put in the man he had called Mac.

"Not so many of them either," retorted Marmaduke, "as you know Jack Jardine keeps us going. God bless him!" he added cheerfully.

"Here, hand us over a few, Major!" said a callow youth who lived to envy the more fashionable habituÉs.

"No go, Smithers!" remarked another youth less sallow; "even Nathan couldn't make you up to his form."

But Marmaduke, after a hasty glance at the superscriptions, had dexterously flung a dozen or so of letters into the applicant's tall hat, which was obstructing the way between his chair and the next. One smaller than the rest which Marmaduke had overlooked flew over it and lay on the carpet. It was directed in an uneducated hand.

"Hullo, pretty milliner, eh, Duke?" said Mac, taking it up and opening it. "No, no, fair play, you gave it----"

Marmaduke, standing over him, blushed like a girl as he glanced at the writing.

"It's nothing, Mac," he began.

But Mac was not to be put off in a moment.

"'Respekted and Honerd Sir'--can't spell, anyhow," he read out. "'The money as you scent save my wife an' children from blank starvayshion"'--he turned round and looked at Marmaduke reproachfully. "And you owe me five pounds, you d----d Christian philanthropist."

Marmaduke Muir gave an apologetic laugh.

"The poor devil was in my regiment once--and as for the five pounds, here you are. I had a stroke of luck down in Norfolk at loo----"

"Save you from 'blank starvayshion,' eh, Mac?" growled a man who also owed money in the same quarter, whereat there was a general laugh, for Major Macdonald was known to be near.

Marmaduke, opening his letters rapidly, put most of them into the waste-paper basket. Invitations from people he scarcely knew to balls and dances, others to festivities past and gone. Some few he put in his pocket, and one he sat and stared at as he smoked his cigar. Luncheon--one o'clock--there was plenty of time; and Louisa Marchioness of Broadway was the most amusing old lady in town. An old friend of his father's, too, though that wasn't in her favour. Still she was interested in the family, and had always been particularly kind to him.

An hour later, therefore, he sat waiting his hostess' appearance in the tiny drawing-room of one of that row of tiny houses which, till a very few years ago, stood back from Knightsbridge Road, separated from it by a tiny secluded carriage-drive of their own and opening out with little narrow strips of back gardens to the park. He was seated at the window, but it seemed to him as if he were close to the roaring fire; indeed, all things were close to each other in the small room where the big, central, mid-Victorian table, with its broidered tablecloth, solitary vase of flowers, and besprinkling books of beauty seemed to monopolise all space. One of these same books of beauty lay open at a simpering bottlenecked portrait subscribed in a fine feminine hand, "Louisa Broadway." It always did; the servant had orders to that effect.

"À la bonheur, monsieur!" came a voice from the door. It was the most ancient thing about Louisa Marchioness of Broadway. All else was open to manipulation and the manipulation was good. She did not, however, dye her hair. Spiteful folk said it was because powder had been the fashion when she was in the heyday of her beauty; but she was a very clever lady, and doubtless she realised how much more real a make-up seems when toned to white hair than to dark. As it was, the effect was still charming, and her figure was that of a girl of eighteen.

"A moi l'honneur," quoth Marmaduke gallantly, as he advanced to kiss the old lady's outstretched hand and lead her to a chair.

In a certain set at that time there was a fashion for interpolating French into English--one of the signs of the coming war which was darkening the horizon of Europe.

So they sat and talked lightly of it, and of the Prince Consort's unpopularity, and the coming opening of the King's new Royal Palace of Westminster, which are now, forgetfully and conveniently, called the Houses of Parliament, until luncheon was announced, and Marmaduke had to pilot his hostess down the narrow stairs--a difficult task which he felt would have been far easier had he carried her. And with the thought came in a rush that delight in freedom, that fresh enjoyment of the unconventional, which always made him remember Marrion Paul. It sobered him a little and he talked with more effort. Not that it mattered, since his hostess was all sparkle and wit. And the luncheon itself was everything that could be desired. Marmaduke, a bit of an epicure in personal matters, found the snug little horse-shoe table, with its curve to the fire so that you could feel the warmth while you looked out of the window, very conducive to comfort, for you sat undisturbed by servings behind you. All that went on in front, and you could see what was handed to you without fear of ricking your neck or getting the gravy spilt over your clothes. The menu, too, if sparse, was super-excellent. In her youth Louisa Broadway had been Ambassadress at various European Courts; she was a gourmet of distinction, so it was quite a complacent Marmaduke who at her invitation, after the servant left the room, turned his chair to the fire and joined his hostess in a glass of Madeira.

"And now for business," she said, while her face took on a new expression which obscured the paint and the prettiness, and left it wise yet kindly--wise with the wisdom of a worldly old age. "Now, you don't suppose, do you, young man, that I asked you here to give you a good lunch--you'll admit you have had one, I presume--and talk to you about things that don't really matter a brass farthing to either of us? For what do you care about the Houses of Parliament, and what do I care about scandals--I have had plenty--de trop, in fact! No, I brought you here to introduce you to my grand-niece--Sibthorpe's youngest daughter. She will be here immediately, and I want you to marry her."

"Really, Lady Broadway!" flustered Marmaduke.

"Rather crude, I admit," continued his hostess, "but I object to beating about the bush, especially when I want to get inside. The fact is, Marmaduke, I have heard from your father----"

"It is good of you to read his letters; they are not----" began the son stiffly.

"Don't be silly, my dear lad," went on the old woman, "your father has his faults, but he was quite as good-looking as a young man as you are--at any rate, I thought so. Now, he wants you to marry, and he has every reason to wish it. It is the only chance of an heir to the title, for Peter's last escapade has about finished his hopes in that quarter."

"I can't discuss----" began Marmaduke very stiff.

"Oh, yes, you can!" went on the old lady imperturbably. "We are en petit comitÉ, and I'll confess to being old, very old, old enough to be your great-grandmother. Now, Marmaduke, a great-great-grandmother--did I put in the two greats the first time?--can talk over things more sensibly than even a great-great-grandfather. You see, my dear, she has passed through it all and left it all behind her. And so, my dear child--I nursed you as a baby, remember--why don't you marry? Or perhaps you are married already?"

There was an exquisite lightness of raillery in the suggestion which absolutely barred offence, and there was kindness in the keen old eyes. Nevertheless, Marmaduke was uncomfortably aware that they took in his sudden flush. She gave him no time for interruption, however, and went on airily--

"For all I know the heir may already be in existence!" Here Marmaduke asserted himself with great dignity. "My dear madam, if I had any children I should acknowledge them!"

Louisa Lady Broadway smiled gently. She had gained one piece of knowledge, anyhow. The obstruction, if there was one, was a childless wife.

"I am glad to hear it, my dear, but I knew you had a good heart, or I wouldn't have risked speaking to you. I wouldn't do as much for one in a thousand. Now, my dear, I am nearly eighty years old, and I understand things as perhaps few women do understand them. I don't expect many men have lived to be your age without forming ties of some kind, especially if they live in Scotland, Marmaduke"--the thrust went home again, she thought--"but money does a lot, especially when there are no children. A good round annuity means much when a man is not well off, as you are, and has probably to wait for many years ere he falls into money--as you have, for Pitt is the heir, of course. But your father would find the cash----"

"If he would find the money to pay for my colonelcy," burst in Marmaduke, "it would be better than setting people to find out mare's nests! I don't mean to be rude, Lady Broadway; you are very kind, but I really can't discuss----"

"I think you can," interrupted Louisa Broadway in her turn, "especially if it is not a question of mere money, and money is, I believe, a very small matter to some people--to you, for instance, Marmaduke! You never think of it, do you, so long as you've got it?--ha, ha! But there are other considerations. To begin with, I believe that when there are no children a marriage should automatically become null and void. And apart from that I don't believe that any woman who really loves a man would ever stand in his light or prevent him from doing his duty. I am sure if I had had no children, and Broadway----" The illustration, however, was beyond even her powers of fiction, and the opening of the door brought relief. "Oh, here is the young lady! Amabel, let me introduce Major Marmaduke Muir. Major Muir, Lady Amabel Sibthorpe. I expect you are kindred spirits, as you are both such outdoor people."

The girl, who had rushed in somewhat unceremoniously, looked up frankly into Marmaduke's blue eyes. There was undisguised admiration in her glance.

"Oh, yes," she said, "I've always wanted to know Major Muir since I saw him punish a horrid little boy in the park for bullying his dog!"

Marmaduke, as he made his bow, felt that the clever old lady with the painted face was very clever indeed. She had gauged her man completely. Most people on the task would have supplied him with a befrilled fashionable beauty; the sort of woman with whom he flirted, who amused him, attracted him, tempted him. But this joyous, buoyant girl, with good-breeding in every line and feature----

No, Louisa Lady Broadway had made a mistake; she had reminded him of Marrion Paul.

So, after the shortest interval compatible with his rÔle of charming young man, he took his leave and went fuming back to his lodgings in Duke Street, which he kept as a pied-À-terre for himself and Peter. The latter was out, so Marmaduke went straight up to his bedroom to change his London things for his uniform, since he had to report himself on arrival at Aldershot. There was plenty of time, but he meant to go round by Marrion's first. He had not seen her for over ten days, and----

Despite an anger at interference which had grown instead of diminishing, old Lady Broadway's words, "a woman who loves a man will never stand in his light or prevent him from doing his duty," would keep recurring to his mind. It was exactly what Marrion had said to him scores and scores of times. Curious, two such different women having precisely the same views. Not that they mattered. He had his own. Still, half-mechanically when he was dressed he took out of his despatch-box a small packet of papers, and, opening one of the envelopes, began to read the contents. One sheet was the excerpt from the visitors' book at the Cross-keys Inn where he had written "Captain the Honourable Marmaduke and Mrs. Muir." He smiled at it bitterly, wondering whether, if he had relied on that, as Marrion had begged him, he should have felt as bound as he did now. With a shrug of his shoulders he folded it again and thrust it back into the envelope. The other sheet was a counterpart of the paper which Marrion Paul had, unknown to him, given to his father. He sat staring at it almost stupidly until a knock came to the door, when he hastily replaced it and put the bundle in his breast-pocket. The new-comer was Andrew Fraser, and he carried a letter.

"I was roond tae the club, sir," he said, with a salute, "as I thocht it might be o' importance seein' it was frae the castle; but you was awa."

The man's face was as ever, full of devotion and duty. The past seven years had brought him many an anxiety, many an agony, but he had stuck by the two beings he loved best on earth with a steadfastness beyond all praise.

"All right, Andrew," replied his master cheerily, "pack up, will you, and take the things to the station. I'm going round by Mrs. Marsden's."

"Very well, sir," replied the servant quietly.

He had been discretion itself all these years, ever since Marrion had come to him one day and told him the truth, that she was married. If she had not so told him, what would he have done? His simple soul could never answer the question.

Meanwhile, Marmaduke in a cab was reading his father's epistle, which ran thus--

"My Dear Marmaduke,--I believe you are my son, so I expect you to give this letter your earnest consideration. As you are aware there is no heir to the title or estate. I had the misfortune to beget a creature who calls himself the Master of Drummuir and is not the master of anything. Then there is Peter, a promising boy whom you have ruined by providing him with an attachÉship at Vienna, a place which did for his uncle whom he greatly resembles. The accounts of the physician concerning his health are simply disastrous. He has narrowly escaped an asylum for life. This being so, it is imperative that you shall marry and produce an heir for the estate. I see by various letters of yours (unanswered) that you are again in want of money to purchase your promotion to colonel. It is a nefarious, a reprehensible swindle which should be abolished, and to which I should never yield were it not that I wish to strike a bargain with you--namely, I will purchase your colonelcy, if you will consent at once to seek out a suitable wife and marry her within the year. If you accede to this most reasonable request I will send a cheque to your bankers and I shall expect to see you--and Peter also if he is really sane--here for Christmas.

"Yours truly,

"Drummuir.

"P.S.--Let me tell you, sir, that it is deuced dull here with those two virtuous frumps, my Lady and Penelope. They were more amusing when they were young. But if you come--and why shouldn't you?--we'll have a regular rouser."

Marmaduke read this letter over twice. It was the kindest, most reasonable one he had ever had from his father. And the postscript touched him. Its very frankness made him realise what life must now be to one who in his youth had been "quite as good-looking as you are."

Old Lady Broadway's words recurred to him as he stood at the little door with its brass name-plate waiting for admission. And if he got his colonelcy and the command of the regiment? If there was going to be war?

But was there going to be war? He felt a little as if he had to face an enemy as he ran upstairs two steps at a time.