Ten days had passed on wings of magic. He saw Angela every day and Claude all day. Featherstone was perfectly charming. He could not have exhibited greater solicitude for the comfort of his guest had he been the Shah of Persia or the Prince of Wales. Lady Featherstone was polite, and no more. Angela was frigid. She seemed to be beyond his power to excite. Once or twice she showed a slight interest in his actions or reminiscences. She had even openly admired his wonderful horsemanship; but she never failed to make perfectly clear the huge gulf that loomed between a "cowboy" and a daughter of British aristocracy. The ingenuous Claude was feeling extremely uncomfortable. He could not bring himself to believe that his father's extraordinary behavior was genuine. Politeness was one thing, but flattery was another. All that "attention" seemed so out of place with His Lordship, who was notoriously vain of his name and antecedents. Claude himself was a little sick of family pride. He had even on one occasion intimated to his mother that he knew for a fact that the first Featherstone got his Letters Patent for the noble act of assassinating a certain Du
