"He's very like the duke, though," General Claviger went on, after
a moment's pause, during which everybody watched Bertram and Frida
disappearing down the walk round a clump of syringas. "Very like
the duke. And you saw he admitted some sort of relationship, though
he didn't like to dwell upon it. You may be sure he's a by-blow of
the family somehow. One of the Bertrams, perhaps the old duke who
was out in the Crimea, may have formed an attachment for one of
these Ingledew girls--the cobbler's sisters: I dare say they were
no better in their conduct than they ought to be--and this may be
the consequence."

"I'm afraid the old duke was a man of loose life and doubtful
conversation," the Dean put in, with a tone of professional
disapprobation for the inevitable transgressions of the great and
the high-placed. "He didn't seem to set the example he ought to
have done to his poorer brethren."

"Oh, he was a thorough old rip, the duke, if it comes to that,"
General Claviger responded, twirling his white moustache. "And so's
the present man--a rip of the first water. They're a regular bad
lot, the Bertrams, root and stock. They never set an example of
anything to anybody--bar horse-breeding,--as far as I'm aware; and
even at that their trainers have always fairly cheated 'em."

"The present duke's a most exemplary churchman," the Dean
interposed, with Christian charity for a nobleman of position.
"He gave us a couple of thousand last year for the cathedral
restoration fund."

"And that would account," Philip put in, returning abruptly to the