The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stainer Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place.

When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank. Dan’s thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation he put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl he had known slightly in his own town years ago a wall of partition. Every time he saw her Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been his tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his shadow. The simplicity of Dan’s life, his decent bringing up, his immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made him naÏve, but he was not dull. He waited—not like a skeptic who would fit every one into his pigeonholes—on the contrary, he waited to find every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, making the boy’s belief in good things ridiculous.

He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the Duchess of Breakwater, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty before her, and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in love with the lovely English country over which his motor took him, and it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in his car, looking over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, as through the misty country his motor took its way. The breath of England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they stopped at Castelene, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt something of proprietorship stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered a drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father’s name or than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like emotion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear.

The duchess waited for him in the room known as the “Green Knight’s Room,” because of a figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in wool had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabella was kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight’s tapestry was simple and convincing. On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies stood up like trees, a slender lady poised, her dark sandaled feet on the pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of friendly and confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. The lady’s face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt, originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention evidently to kill a creature which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five hundred years the serpent’s venom had been poised, and if the serpent should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic moment.

Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable feast. The room was full of mediÆval furnishings, but the Green Knight was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater took him for granted. She had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her price.

When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail under the Green Knight’s very nose and offered it with the wisdom of the serpent itself, and the duchess didn’t in the least suggest the white-robed, milk-white lady.

The friends drank their cocktails in good spirits, and Dan presented the lady with the flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong sentiment stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him. The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy’s broad shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was a good example of the best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were level, and Dan met them with his own.

“I am so glad you came,” she murmured. “I’ve been ragging myself every minute since you went away from Osdene.”

“You have? What for?”

“Because I was such a perfect prig. I’ll do anything you like for Miss Lane. I mean to say, I’ll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing.”

The color rushed into Dan’s face. How bully of her! What a brick this showed her to be! He said: “You are as sweet as a peach!”

The duchess’ hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid breath.

“I don’t make you think of a box of candy now?” she murmured, and the boy covered her hand with his own.

“I don’t know what you make me think of—it is bully, whatever it is!”

If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the immaculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a sword to protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was irrevocable in its mistaken idea, that it is only the woman who needs protection!