"The case, my dear," he acknowledged, "has, I am sorry to say, gone against me. A remarkably ill-informed and unattractive looking person, whom they tell me will presently be Lord Chief Justice, presumed not only to give a decision which was in itself quite absurd, but also refused leave to appeal."
"Sorry to hear that, sir," Sir Robert remarked. "Cost you a lot of money, too, I'm afraid."
"I believe that it has been an expensive case," the Marquis admitted. "My lawyer seemed very depressed about it."
"And you mean to say that it's really all over and done with now?" Lady Margaret enquired.
"For the present, it certainly seems so," the Marquis replied. "I cannot believe, personally, that the laws of my country afford me no relief, under the peculiar circumstances of the case. According to Mr. Wadham, however, they do not."
"What is it all about, anyway, Reginald?" his sister asked. "I have heard more than once but I have forgotten. Whenever I look in the paper for a divorce case, I nearly always see your name against the King, or the King against you, with a person named Vont also interested. Surely the Vont family have been retainers down at Mandeleys for generations? I remember one of them perfectly well."
The Marquis cleared his throat.
"The unfortunate circumstances," he said, "are perhaps little known even amongst the members of my own family. Perhaps it will suffice if I say that, owing to an indiscretion of my uncle and predecessor, the eleventh Marquis, a gamekeeper's cottage and small plot of land, curiously situated in the shadow of Mandeleys, became the property of a yeoman of the name of Vont. This ill-advised and singular action of my late uncle is complicated by the fact that the inheritors of his bounty have become, as a family, inimical to their patrons. Their present representative, for instance, is obsessed by some real or fancied grievance upon which I scarcely care to dilate. For nearly twenty years," the Marquis continued ruminatively, "the cottage has been empty except for the presence of an elderly person who died some years ago. Since then I have, through my lawyers, endeavoured, both by purchase and by upsetting the deed of gift, to regain possession of the property. The legal owner appears to be domiciled in America, and as he has been able to resist my lawsuits and has refused all my offers of purchase, I gather that in that democratic country he has amassed a certain measure of wealth. We are now confronted with the fact that this person announces his intention of returning to England and taking up his residence within a few yards of my front door."
Sir Robert laughed heartily.
"Upon my word, sir," he exclaimed, "it's a humorous situation!"