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Rh Granville sighed.

'Do you comprehend it, dear mother? I think I do, at last, though the prepositions are left to the imagination. He has saved at least twopence over those prepositions—which, of course, is an item, even in a ten-pound job.'

'You don't mean to say it will cost him ten pounds?'

'Every penny of it: it would cost you or me, or any ordinary person, at least a fiver. I am allowing for Alfred's being let in rather further than any one else would be.'

'At all events,' said Lady Bligh, 'you will do what he asks you; you will be at Westminster at the time he mentions?'

Granville shrugged his shoulders. 'Certainly, if you wish it.'

'I think it would be kind.'

'Then I will go, by all means.'

'Thank you—and Granville! I do wish you would give up sneering at your brother's peculiarities. He does do odd and impulsive things, we know; and there is no denying the extravagance of steaming up the river all the way from Gravesend. But, after all, he has money, and no doubt he wants to show his wife the Thames, and to bring her home in a