Chapter VI - Page 2

life. Unless, indeed--well, we know the vicissitudes of families-- perhaps your ancestors and the Ingledews that I know drifted apart a long time ago."

"Is he a cobbler?" Bertram inquired, without a trace of mauvaise honte.

The General nodded. "Well, yes," he said politely, "that's exactly what he is; though, as you seemed to be asking about presumed relations, I didn't like to mention it."

"Oh, then, he's my ancestor," Bertram put in, quite pleased at the discovery. "That is to say," he added after a curious pause, "my ancestor's descendant. Almost all my people, a little way back, you see, were shoe-makers or cobblers."

He said it with dignity, exactly as he might have said they were dukes or lord chancellors; but Philip could not help pitying him, not so much for being descended from so mean a lot, as for being fool enough to acknowledge it on a gentleman's lawn at Brackenhurst. Why, with manners like his, if he had not given himself away, one might easily have taken him for a descendant of the Plantagenets.

So the General seemed to think too, for he added quickly, "But you're very like the duke, and the duke's a Bertram. Is he also a relative?"

The young man coloured slightly. "Ye-es," he answered, hesitating; "but we're not very proud of the Bertram connection. They never did much good in the world, the Bertrams. I bear the name, one may almost say by accident, because it was handed down to me by my grandfather Ingledew, who had Bertram blood, but was a vast deal a better man than any other member of the Bertram family."

"I'll be seeing the duke on Wednesday," the General put in, with marked politeness, "and I'll ask him, if you like, about your grandfather's relationship. Who was he exactly, and what was his connection with the present man or his predecessor?"

"Oh, don't, please," Bertram put in, half-pleadingly, it is true, but still with that same ineffable and indefinable air of a great gentleman that never for a moment deserted him. "The duke would never have heard of my ancestors, I'm sure, and I particularly don't want to be mixed up with the existing Bertrams in any way."

He was happily innocent and ignorant of the natural interpretation the others would put upon his reticence, after the true English manner; but still he was vaguely aware, from the silence that ensued for a moment after he ceased, that he must have broken once more some important taboo, or offended once more some much-revered fetich. To get rid of the awkwardness he turned quietly to Frida. "What do you say, Mrs. Monteith," he suggested, "to a game of tennis?"

As bad luck would have it, he had floundered from one taboo headlong into another. The Dean looked up, open-mouthed, with a sharp glance of inquiry.