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He could not have trusted himself to answer coherently just yet. He had hardly taken in the significance of what Lister had said as yet, there seemed to be so many sides to it.

“Trent—Trent, of all names in the world! Why didn’t I remember ‘Trent of Trent Stoke’—of course that was it. . . . How funny! Why—why, Pamela’s my first cousin! How monstrously funny! What did he say about the elder—it can’t mean that it’s mine really. . . . That would be too much of a joke. . . . Well, my liberal education has made me about as unsuitable a Lord Trent as could be imagined, so perhaps it’s just as well that there is a convenient and ornamental usurper in the position . . . and as my money is utterly gone, I’d better dive back into the Underworld to-morrow. . . . I’ll sell my clothes and get sea-togs with some of the proceeds, and sail in the first old hooker that leaves from the Pool . . . if they’ll have me! . . . I can’t go on here; if I had any security I’d try bridge, but I don’t want to lose and be unable to pay; and even if I was unusually lucky, my leaving suddenly soon after would look rather doubtful, as no one knows anything about me after all. . . . Trent! My mother a Trent. . . . Oh, Pamela, little Pamela, how very funny it is that you should be a cousin of mine! . . . or that I should be one of your family—that puts it better. . . .”

He stared at the stage, only conscious that figures were moving on it, and hearing the dialogue merely as a formless humming. Mad, oh, quite mad! If Lister had known, he would have had something to make a fuss over. It was rather funny to stand quite still and hear your own father discussed that way. Whatever Lister thought of the case, he would probably be rather shocked that Tony had attempted no defence. If he only knew———

Tony wondered what he would have looked like. Then for an instant a thought of quite a different colour came into his brain. It had often been present before, but till this