“Would I have been Lord Temple Temple Barholm or something of that sort?” Tembarom asked.
“You would have been the Marquis of Belcarey,” the duke replied, looking him over thoughtfully, “and your name would probably have been Hugh Lawrence Gilbert Henry Charles Adelbert, or words to that effect.”
“A regular six-shooter,” said Tembarom.
The duke was following it up with absorption in his eyes.
“You'd have gone into the Guards, perhaps,” he said, “and drill would have made you carry yourself better. You're a good height. You'd have been a well-set-up fellow. I should have been rather proud of you. I can see you riding to the palace with the rest of them, sabres and chains clanking and glittering and helmet with plumes streaming. By Jove! I don't wonder at the effect they have on nursery-maids. On a sunny morning in spring they suggest knights in a fairytale.”
“I should have liked it all right if I hadn't been born in Brooklyn,” grinned Tembarom. “But that starts you out in a different way. Do you think, if I'd been born the Marquis of Bel—what's his name—I should have been on to Palliser's little song and dance, and had as much fun out of it?”
“On my soul, I believe you would,” the duke answered. “Brooklyn or Stone Hover Castle, I'm hanged if you wouldn't have been YOU.”
CHAPTER XXIX
After this came a pause. Each man sat thinking his own thoughts, which, while marked with difference in form, were doubtless subtly alike in the line they followed. During the silence T. Tembarom looked out at the late afternoon shadows lengthening themselves in darkening velvet across the lawns.