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appreciated her efforts to divert him had he not recently come to suspect that only a desire to serve her colonel an ill turn prompted Phaedra to open intrigue. That she would dare involve him in her scheming did not please Sandor, who considered the mapping out of subtle plots his own province; nor did he derive any humor from the situation. Still, he would not add to the discomforts of a lady already laboring under a budget of woes. At one time, before she discovered that she was in love with a husband whose disinterest matched his jealousy, Phaedra had been very good company.
    Sandor took his leave of her after a scant half hour, reflecting that since the game of hearts fatigued him to death, he might be wise to consider indulging in it no more. Moreover, he decided, fair barques of frailty had bored him for some time. It was a startling realization, and one that left the duke unaccountably depressed, suggesting to him as it did that he was growing old. Next, he supposed, he would find himself abandoning his other habitual pursuits—his gaming and his bloodstock, the ring and the racetrack—for the pleasures of hearth and home.
    In this vein reflecting, and reflecting also that a fireside encumbered with Miss Prunes and Prisms, as alas his was, would offer scant comfort to a man grievously stricken in years, His Grace strolled along the Steine. He derived no pleasure from the greetings of those acquaintances that he met, nor animation from the brisk sea breeze that swept inland, carrying with it the scent of gorse on the surrounding Downs. Indeed, he quite unwittingly snubbed several of his friends.
    What the deuce possessed him? wondered the duke. He was in a very odd mood. He wished to do something, but he knew not what; the sham fight on the Downs held out as little allure as had Phaedra herself—and that the fair Phaedra had held out no allure was a clear indication that a man had lost possession of his senses, as the lady herself would have been first to agree.
    In this frame of mind, the duke repaired to the library on the Marine Parade, in hope that the London newspapers would alleviate his ennui. The newspapers did not, nor did Miss Choice-Pickerell, whom he inadvertently interrupted at the telescope. Miss Choice-Pickerell, he was informed, was a little out of sorts, having been cut dead in the street by Miss Baskerville. Oddly, this information somewhat relieved Sandor’s gloom; in a world that had grown flat, Binnie could still be depended on to irritate him.
    With this point of view the duke did not acquaint Cressida. She may have been a young woman of singular character, but he did not make the mistake of thinking she would understand his admittedly singular, and eminently masculine, viewpoint. Instead, the duke offered consolation of a sort: Miss Baskerville, he said, was prone to queer flights. What signified her megrims, he inquired; it was young Lieutenant Baskerville with whose conduct Miss Choice-Pickerell need be concerned. He trusted that young Lieutenant Baskerville had given his fiancée no reason for offense.
    Young Lieutenant Baskerville had not, but the same could not be said of the duke himself, as Cressida archly explained. She could only think, due to the duke’s habit of interfering with Neal’s plans, that he did not approve his cousin’s betrothal. His Grace was also growing rapidly bored with Miss Choice-Pickerell but had his own reasons for wishing this betrothal to remain in effect; he therefore politely responded that, had he wished to scotch the affair, he would hardly have given his approval the match. No longer in the mood to peruse newspapers, and definitely in no mood to further bandy words with Miss Choice-Pickerell, he took his leave of her before he succumbed to the temptation of uttering a setdown so harsh that it must set his good work all at naught.
    The duke understood Cressida perfectly. She was as selfishly single-sighted as he was himself. This circumstance roused in