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her.
    Lying against her lace-edged pillows, her grey hair covered with a very becoming little lace cap and lace falling over her hands from her silk nightgown, the Duchess still possessed a shadow of the beauty that had been hers in the past.
    There was an expression of satisfaction in her eyes as she looked up at her grandson.
    In his evening clothes the Marquis was unbelievably elegant.
    He was wearing, instead of knee breeches and silk stockings, the long tight-fitting black drainpipe trousers which had been invented by the Prince Regent.
    His cravat was tied with great ingenuity and his tailcoat with its silk lapels had been cut by a master hand.
    With his hair in the windswept fashion, again introduced by the Prince Regent, the Marquis looked so handsome that the Duchess wondered how any girl could have been such a fool, as Lady Sarah had been, as to lose him.
    She was aware as well that the cynical lines running from his nose to his lips were even deeper than usual. She was sure that not only his eyes were critical of everything and everybody but his whole attitude was more supercilious than ever.
    ‘Curse the girl!’ she said to herself. ‘She had the chance of sweeping away the disillusionment that spoils him and, whatever he may say, it will take him a long time to forget and forgive!”
    She did not, however, voice her thoughts aloud and merely exclaimed,
    “How smart you look, Drogo dear! No wonder the Prince Regent is jealous of you when he grows fatter and fatter year by year, while you seem to grow slimmer.”
    “That is because of the exercise I take,” the Marquis replied. “Besides, I don’t gorge myself as everybody has to do at Charlton House night after night!”
    “Nevertheless your chef at Berkeley Square is an excellent man,” the Duchess replied, “and I look forward to enjoying my meals as your guest.”
    “It will be delightful to have you,” the Marquis responded quite sincerely.
    “Do you really mean to say that I have only twenty-four hours in which to make that child a sensation?” the Duchess asked.
    “It’s best to ‘strike while the iron is hot’,” the Marquis answered, “and you must be aware that once Ula is launched under your chaperonage it will be impossible for the Earl to make any claim to take her back to the country.”
    “I understand,” the Duchess said, “and that is something which must never happen.”
    She looked up at the Marquis as she added,
    “My lady’s maid tells me that when she helped Ula with her bath, she was appalled by seeing the scars on her back, some of which were still bleeding from the beating she received last night!”
    The Marquis frowned.
    “Then it is true what she told me?”
    “Only too pitiably true,” the Duchess said. “Robinson says she must have suffered agonies, not only when it happened, but also when the open wounds stuck to her clothing, which had to be pulled away when she undressed.”
    The Duchess saw with satisfaction the anger in the Marquis’s eyes and the tightness of his lips.
    She knew that he had rather doubted Ula’s story of how her uncle had beaten her and she had the same suspicion herself.
    But there was now no doubt that the child had been treated even worse than any drunken labourer would have treated his children after drinking on a Friday night.
    “I will see that Chessington-Crewe pays for this!” the Marquis exclaimed.
    “I can only thank God,” the Duchess said quietly, “that you have been spared a marriage which would have made you not only unhappy but even more cynical and disillusioned than you are already!”
    “Who said I am either of those things?” the Marquis asked truculently.
    “I am not going to argue about it,” his grandmother replied. “As you were always my favourite grandson, all I have ever wanted for you is that you should find happiness.”
    “I have no hope that will prove possible,” the Marquis said, “but I am prepared to settle for a certain amount of