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affair too. . . . After all, it’s not as though I were a Heaven-sent ruler; Trent Stoke and the rest of the dependencies will get on as well—better—under Pamela and her future husband. As to families—good Lord! Not yet. Every man wants that sooner or later, but on the whole I think I’ll feel cleaner if I founded my own. . . . Alison is the dearest woman in the world, but she is obstinate. . . . Do I like tricks, either? But when you can’t get a thing by the straight road, what else are you to do? As to thinking that we might get married! . . . The Ste. Croix have married their first cousins too often as it is, judging by the crop of dégénérés I saw last time I was in Paris. . . . Besides, we aren’t within a thousand miles of being in love with each other, and I think it’s a disgusting idea to marry without that, especially a young girl. And if I weren’t in love with my wife I’d throw plates at her—or desert her—or go mad—or—any other of the usual avenues of escape within a month. And we’d never trust each other. . . .

“I do like my cousin Pamela, she’s a nice brave little girl, and now that she knows I wasn’t actually born in the gutter she treats me as a human being. Now if my father’s name had been Boggs and my mother’s Gubbins, and I had been born there and transplanted to the Trent Stoke day nursery at an early age, I’d be much nearer the standard Lord Trent, but nothing in earth or heaven will ever make her see that! . . . Poor little thing, I’m sorry it will take me so long, it’ll be two months at the very least before I can be dead to anyone’s satisfaction, and of course it will be longer before she gets back. . . . She will be much humaner by then—but I wish to God it hadn’t been my luck to provide her with the experience. . . . It hurt like knives when she said it that last time—worse than the first day, if anything—‘You ought to be pleased!’—it was harder than if she had said it on purpose. . . . If it wasn’t for Pamela I’d like to be Trent, as long as I didn’t have to