The Honorable Percival

								

tragedy.
Since his advent into the world twenty-eight years before, he had
been made to feel but one responsibility. His elder brother, having
persistently refused to provide himself with a wife and heir, the duty
of perpetuating the family name fell upon him, Percival Hascombe, second
son of the late Earl of Westenhanger, of Hascombe Hall, fifth in descent
from the great Westenhanger whose marble effigy adorns the dullest and
most respectable cathedral in southern England.
From the time Percival had been able to cast a discriminating eye, his
adoring family had presented the feminine flowers of the country-side
for his inspection. One after another they had met with his grave
consideration and subsequent disapprobation. Fears had begun to be
entertained that he would follow in the solitary footsteps of his
bachelor brother, when Lady Hortense Vevay appeared on the scene.
Lady Hortense, with her mother, the Duchess of Dare, had come down
to Devon for the shooting one autumn, seeking rest after a strenuous
social season following her presentation at court. She had been there
less than a week when she bagged the biggest game in the neighborhood.
The explanation was obvious: the Lady Hortense had no faults to be
discovered. The closest inspection through two pairs of glasses,
Percival's and her own, failed to reveal a flaw. Her birth and position
were equal to his own; her beauty, if attenuated, was sufficient; while
her discriminating taste amounted to a virtue. The Honorable Percival
proffered his hand, and was accepted. Hascombe Hall rang with applause.
All might have been well had not mother and daughter been pressed to
seal the compact by a closer intimacy in a ten-days' visit at the hall.
The young people were allowed to bask uninterrupted in the light of each
other's perfections, and the result was disastrous. Two persons who have
achieved distinction as soloists do not take kindly to duets. A few days
after the Vevays' return to London, Lady Hortense wrote a perfectly
worded note, and asked to be released from the engagement.
The utterly preposterous fact that a Hascombe of Hascombe Hall had been
jilted was too amazing a circumstance to be concealed, and the county
buzzed with rumors. The Honorable Percival, whose pride had sustained
a compound fracture, set sail immediately for America. After a hurried
trip across the continent, he was embarking again, this time for
Hong-Kong, where a sympathetic married sister held out embracing arms,
and a promise of refuge from wagging tongues.
As he moved languidly down the deck and sank into the steamer-chair that
bore his name, he assured himself for the fortieth time since leaving
England that life bored him to tears. He had sounded its joys and its
sorrows, he had exhausted its thrills; it was like a scenic railway
over which he was compelled to ride after every detail had become
monotonously familiar. There was nothing more for him to learn about