Chapter 28 - Page 2

too sane
to have coddled the boy and made him effeminate--what has she done
instead?"

"He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking
if he were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has
done is to so fill him with the power and sense of her charm that
he has not seen enough of the world or learned to care for it. She
is the one woman on earth for him and life with her at Braemarnie
is all he asks for."

"Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust
him to your instructions."

"I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have," Coombe
said. "I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and
tried to explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no
harm in my society. My heir presumptive and I must see something
of each other and he must become intimate with the prospect of
his responsibilities. More will be demanded of the next Marquis
of Coombe than has been demanded of me. And it will be DEMANDED
not merely hoped for or expected. And it will be the overwhelming
forces of Fate which will demand it--not mere tenants or constituents
or the general public."

"Have you any views as to WHAT will be demanded?" was her interested
question.

"None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will
have any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment
there will be the pouring forth of blood--the blood of magnificent
lads like Donal Muir--perhaps his own blood,--my God!"

"And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe," from the
Duchess.

"There will be many a house left without its head--houses great
and small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at
this date it would be less perilous than it is."

"Lads like that!" said the old Duchess bitterly. "Lads in their
strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous."

"In all their young virility and promise for a next generation--the
strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It's damnable!
And it will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched
world."

It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy
for which they believed the world's stage already being set in
secret, and though there were here and there others who felt the
ominous inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of
the world looked on in careless indifference to the significance of
the open training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings
of its stage carpenters and builders. In these days the two
discussed the matter more frequently and even in the tone of those