Leslie's Loyalty. Garvice Charles
had nothing to conceal," said Yorke, with averted eyes. "It didn't matter to her that – that you called me a duke. Why should it?"
"Why should it! My dear Yorke, you have grown simple during your moonlight sail. Oh, she was confused and flustered, believe me; but all her sex are actresses from the cradle. Give me your hand, and let us go in."
Yorke helped him up the stairs and into his chair, then stood gazing moodily out of the window.
"Your outing seems to have made you melancholy, Yorke," said the duke. "And yet you looked as if you enjoyed it just now."
"So I did, but – Dolph, I wish to Heaven you hadn't told her that infer – that nonsense!"
The duke leaned back, and looked at him with real or simulated surprise.
"Why not?" he asked. "Have you forgotten our bargain, agreement?"
"Yes, I had forgotten it," replied Yorke, grimly.
"So soon! Why are you so put out? What does it matter? You are going to-morrow – ."
"You forget the drive – the appointment; but the best thing I can do is to go, as you say," said Yorke. "You can make some excuse – ."
"Nonsense! If you care for this outing, stay and go. It will only mean one more day, and London will not fall to pieces because of your absence for twenty-four hours."
"It is not that – ."
"Well, what is it, then? Are you thinking of this girl?"
Yorke flushed, and turned to the window again.
"What does it matter?" went on the duke. "She is a nice girl, but, my dear Yorke," and his voice grew grave, "even if we had not made this little arrangement about the title, she would be nothing more to you than just a pleasant young lady whom you chanced to meet at an outlandish place on the West Coast."
Yorke thrust his hands deep into his pockets – or rather young Whiting's – and the flush on his face grew deeper!
"I know that!" he said, as grimly as before.
"Very well, then! I repeat – what does it matter? If you are annoyed because, in accordance with an arrangement, I introduced you as the duke, why on earth did you consent? It is too late now! Even if I hadn't told her, Grey, or the woman of the house here, or some one else would have done so to-morrow morning – ."
"It is too late, I suppose!" broke in Yorke, moodily.
"Quite too late," retorts the duke, decisively. "To tell the truth now would create a sensation and fuss which would be unendurable." He put his hand to his head as he spoke, and moaned faintly as if in pain. "Give me that small vial off the table, will you, please?" he said.
One of his periodical attacks of nervous neuralgia was coming on; and at such times he was wont to grow irritable.
Yorke poured out some of the medicine, and gave it to him.
"Thanks. Yes, it would make a hideous fuss. We should have it in the papers headed, 'A Ducal Hoax,' or something of that kind. But I don't want to force you into anything against your will. I can leave here the first thing to-morrow; I certainly should go if you departed from our arrangement. I came down here for rest and quiet, and I should get none if it were known who I am. Yes, we'd better go to-morrow."
"No, no," said Yorke. "After all, as you say, it does not matter. Besides – besides, I shouldn't care to deprive her of the little bit of pleasure I'd planned for her; I fancy she doesn't get too much of it."
"I dare say not. Very well, then, you'll stay till after to-morrow? For goodness sake try and look a little less funereal. You had no objection to assuming the role till you met this girl. What difference does she make? You think she will make love to you, eh? I should have thought from what I know of you, Yorke, that you would have no very great objection to that."
Yorke swung round almost angrily.
"Look here, Dolph," he said, grimly. "You are altogether mistaken about her. I tell you that she does not care, and will not care, whether I or you are the duke; she is not that sort of girl at all."
The duke was in a paroxysm of pain, intense enough to turn a saint cynical; he sneered:
"I know them all, root and branch," he said, his thin voice rendered shrill and cutting by his agony. "I tell you that she will make love to you; that, thinking you are the duke, she will try and marry you as she would try and marry me if she knew the truth."
"No!" said Yorke, shortly, almost fiercely. "I say that she would not care."
"You seem to have learned her nature very quickly," retorted the duke, with another sneer.
Yorke colored and turned away.
"I tell you that she will turn out like the rest. You deny it, doubt it; very well. Play the part you have assumed, and if I am wrong I will admit I have done her an injustice."
"You do her a cruel injustice!" said Yorke, in a low voice.
"Very well, then!" shouted the duke. "Try her, try her. And then own that I was right. Ah, you're afraid. You know, in your heart, that she would not stand the test! Your innocent, high-minded girl would prove like the rest! Come, you are beaten! Better spare her the disappointment of setting her cap at a false duke; better go to-morrow, my dear Yorke!"
Yorke swung round, his face pale, an angry light in his eyes.
"No, I'll stay!" he said.
CHAPTER VIII.
YORKE AUCHESTER AS A STRATEGIST
When Leslie wakes next morning she wonders what it is that sends a thrill of happiness through her; then, as with dazed eyes she looks through the sunny window, she remembers the proposed expedition to St. Martin; but she remembers also that the companion of last evening is a duke, and her spirits droop suddenly.
It is difficult to persuade her father to join in the mildest of excursions; it will be very difficult, indeed, to induce him to accept an invitation to drive with a duke. Some women would have experienced an added joy at the thought that they had been honored with civility from a person of such high rank; but the fact rather lessens Leslie's pleasure.
Yorke did her justice; she is not elated nor awed by the ducal title.
When she comes down to breakfast she finds her father posing in front of his picture, his thin hands clasped behind his back, his head bent; and as she kisses him he sighs rather querulously.
"Is anything the matter, dear?" she asks.
"I've got a headache," he replies. "I – I do not feel up to work, and I am so anxious to get on. How do you think it looks?"
Leslie draws him away from the easel to the table, and forces him gently into his chair.
"We will not look at it this morning, at any rate until we have had breakfast, dear," she says. "It is wonderful how much better and brighter this world and everything in it looks after a cup of coffee. But, papa, you must not work to-day, you must take a rest – ."
"A rest!" he begins, impatiently.
"Yes; you know how often you say that working against the grain is time and energy wasted. And there is another reason, dear," she goes on, brightly. "We have an invitation for to-day!"
"A what?" he asks, querulously.
"An invitation, dear. We have been asked to drive to St. Martin. Last night," a faint blush rises to her face, "I ran down to the beach to – to find something I had lost, and I saw Mr. Temple's friend, and we went for a sail with old William; and afterward I saw Mr. Temple outside Marine Villa, and they have been kind enough to ask us to go with them to St. Martin. It was the duke who asked us," she adds, candidly; "but Mr. Temple was just as kind and pressing. I hope you will go, dear."
He puts the thin, straggling hair from his forehead with a nervous gesture.
"What are you talking about, Leslie? what duke?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"It appears that the young man who went in for Dick yesterday, Mr. Temple's friend, is a duke, the Duke