'You knew Lord Pharanx?' I asked.
'I have met him in "the world." His son Lord Randolph, too, I saw once
at Court at Peterhof, and once again at the Winter Palace of the Tsar.
I noticed in their great stature, shaggy heads of hair, ears of a very
peculiar conformation, and a certain aggressiveness of demeanour--a
strong likeness between father and son.'
I had brought with me a bundle of old newspapers, and comparing these
as I went on, I proceeded to lay the incidents before him.
'The father,' I said, 'held, as you know, high office in a late
Administration, and was one of our big luminaries in politics; he has
also been President of the Council of several learned societies, and
author of a book on Modern Ethics. His son was rapidly rising to
eminence in the _corps diplomatique_, and lately (though, strictly
speaking, _unebenbuertig_) contracted an affiance with the Prinzessin
Charlotte Mariana Natalia of Morgen-ueppigen, a lady with a strain of
indubitable Hohenzollern blood in her royal veins. The Orven family is
a very old and distinguished one, though--especially in modern
days--far from wealthy. However, some little time after Randolph had
become engaged to this royal lady, the father insured his life for
immense sums in various offices both in England and America, and the
reproach of poverty is now swept from the race.
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