wheedled him), after a public refusal, to accept the unusual post of
Deputy-Mayor. In two years' time he might count on being Mayor. Why,
then, should Clara have been so anxious for this secondary dignity?
Because, in that year of royal festival, Bursley, in common with many
other boroughs, had had a fancy to choose a Mayor out of the House of
Lords. The Earl of Chell, a magnate of the county, had consented to wear
the mayoral chain and dispense the mayoral hospitalities on condition
that he was provided with a deputy for daily use.

It was the idea of herself being deputy to the lovely, meddlesome, and
arrogant Countess of Chell that had appealed to Clara.

The deputy of a Countess at length spoke.

'Will Harry be late at the works again to-night?' she asked in her
colder, small-talk manner, which committed her to nothing, as Josiah
well knew.

Her way of saying that word 'Harry' was inimitably significant. She gave
it an air. She liked Harry, and she liked Harry's name, because it had a
Kensingtonian sound. Harry, so accomplished in business, was also a
dandy, and he was a dog. 'My stepson'--she loved to introduce him, so
tall, manly, distinguished, and dandiacal. Harry, enriched by his own
mother, belonged to a London club; he ran down to Llandudno for
week-ends; and it was reported that he had been behind the scenes at the
Alhambra. Clara felt for the word 'Harry' the unreasoning affection
which most women lavish on 'George.'

'Like as not,' said Josiah. 'I haven't been to the works this
afternoon.'