"Humph!" The Chancellor peered over his gold-bowed spectacles at his young brother's handsome face. "That's a pity. You might have tried cutting Maximilian out! You would not be a bad match for an ambitious woman, with your good looks, our position, and my money."
"Your money?"
"I mean, if I chose to proclaim you my heir. I would do that, if you married to please me. Who are these De Courcys?"
"I have not had the curiosity to inquire into their antecedents," said Otto. "I only know that they are ladies, that they must be persons of consequence in their own country (or they could not have got letters to everybody here from Lady West), and that the girl is the handsomest creature living."
"The tiger-cat said that Lady West was responsible for the mother and 148 daughter," soliloquized the Chancellor aloud. "But Rhaetia is a long cry from England. And letters are forged sometimes. I have known such things more than once in my experience. Fetch me a big red volume you will find on the third shelf of the bookcase, in the corner by the window that overlooks the lake. The book is Burke's Peerage!"
Otto rose promptly to obey. He was rather thoughtful. His brother had put a completely new idea into his head.
Presently the red volume was discovered and laid open on the desk before the Chancellor, who slowly turned to the required page. As his eye fell upon a long line of De Courcys, his face changed, and the bristling brows drew together in a straight line. At least, these women did not appear to be adventuresses, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.
There they were; his square-tipped finger found and pressed down upon the printed names, with a dig that symbolized its disposition toward their claimants.
"The girl's mother is the widow of Sir Thomas, sixth Baron de Courcy," 149 the Chancellor mumbled half-aloud. "Son, Thomas Alfred—um—um—um—twelve years old; daughter, Gladys Irene Mary Katherine, twenty-eight. Humph! She's no chicken; she ought to have better sense."
"Twenty-eight!" echoed Otto. "I'll be hanged if she's twenty-eight."