Fearfully annoyed I was at the denouement. For now we were in Paris,
rather meanly lodged in a dingy hotel on a narrow street leading from
what with us might have been Piccadilly Circus. Our rooms were rather
a good height with a carved cornice and plaster enrichments, but the
furnishings were musty and the general air depressing, notwithstanding
the effect of a few good mantel ornaments which I have long made it a
rule to carry with me.

Then had come the meeting with the Americans. Glad I was to reflect
that this had occurred in Paris instead of London. That sort of thing
gets about so. Even from Paris I was not a little fearful that news of
his mixing with this raffish set might get to the ears of his
lordship either at the town house or at Chaynes-Wotten. True, his
lordship is not over-liberal with his brother, but that is small
reason for affronting the pride of a family that attained its earldom
in the fourteenth century. Indeed the family had become important
quite long before this time, the first Vane-Basingwell having been
beheaded by no less a personage than William the Conqueror, as I
learned in one of the many hours I have been privileged to browse in
the Chaynes-Wotten library.

It need hardly be said that in my long term of service with the
Honourable George, beginning almost from the time my mother nursed
him, I have endeavoured to keep him up to his class, combating a
certain laxness that has hampered him. And most stubborn he is, and
wilful. At games he is almost quite a duffer. I once got him to play
outside left on a hockey eleven and he excited much comment, some of
which was of a favourable nature, but he cares little for hunting or
shooting and, though it is scarce a matter to be gossiped of, he