His casual frankness, however, for a moment embarrassed Lady Edith to the bitterest extremity.When you are trying your utmost to make a queer person oblivious to the fact that his world is one unknown to you, it is difficult to know where do you stand when he says "It's mighty hard to talk to a man who doesn't know a thing that belongs to the kind of world you've spent your life in, ain't it? But don't you mind me a minute.I'm glad to be talked to anyhow by people like you.When I don't catch on, I'll just ask.No man was ever electrocuted for not knowing, and that's just where I am.I don't know, and I'm glad to be told.Now, there's one thing.Burrill said 'Your Ladyship' to you, I heard him.Ought I to say it, er oughtn't I?""Oh, no," she answered, but somehow without distaste in the momentary stare he had startled her into; "Burrill is--""He's a servant," he aided encouragingly."Well, I've never been a butler, but I've been somebody's servant all my life, and mighty glad of the chance.This is the first time I've been out of a job."What nice teeth he had! What a queer, candid, unresentful creature!
What a good sort of smile! And how odd that it was he who was putting her more at her ease by the mere way in which he was saying this almost alarming thing! By the time he had ended, it was not alarming at all, and she had caught her breath again.
She was actually sorry when the door opened and Lady Joan Fayre came in, followed almost immediately by Lady Mallowe and Captain Palliser, who appeared to have just returned from a walk and heard the news.
Lady Mallowe was most sympathetic.Why not, indeed? The Duke of Stone was a delightful, cynical creature, and Stone Hover was, despite its ducal poverty, a desirable place to be invited to, if you could manage it.Her ladyship's method of fluttering was not like Miss Alicia's, its character being wholly modern; but she fluttered, nevertheless.
The duke, who knew all about her, received her amiabilities with appreciative smiles, but it was the splendidly handsome, hungry-eyed young woman with the line between her black brows who engaged his attention.On the alert, as he always was, for a situation, he detected one at once when he saw his American address her.She did not address him, and scarcely deigned a reply when he spoke to her.When he spoke to others, she conducted herself as though he were not in the room, so obviously did she choose to ignore his existence.Such a bearing toward one's host had indeed the charm of being an interesting novelty.And what a beauty she was, with her lovely, ferocious eyes and the small, black head poised on the exquisite long throat, which was on the verge of becoming a trifle too thin! Then as in a flash he recalled between one breath and another the quite fiendish episode of poor Jem Temple Barholm--and she was the girl!
Then he became almost excited in his interest.He saw it all.As he had himself argued must be the case, this poor fellow was in love.But it was not with a lady in the New York department stores; it was with a young woman who would evidently disdain to wipe her feet upon him.
How thrilling! As Lady Mallowe and Palliser and the others chattered, he watched him, observing his manner.He stood the handsome creature's steadily persistent rudeness very well; he made no effort to push into the talk when she coolly held him out of it.He waited without external uneasiness or spasmodic smiles.If he could do that despite the inevitable fact that he must feel his position uncomfortable, he was possessed of fiber.That alone would make him worth cultivating.
And if there were persons who were to be made uncomfortable, why not cut in and circumvent the beauty somewhat and give her a trifle of unease? It was with the light and adroit touch of accustomedness to all orders of little situations that his grace took the matter in hand, with a shade, also, of amiable malice.He drew Tembarom adroitly into the center of things; he knew how to lead him to make easily the odd, frank remarks which were sufficiently novel to suggest that he was actually entertaining.He beautifully edged Lady Joan out of her position.She could not behave ill to him, he was far too old, he said to himself, leaving out the fact that a Duke of Stone is a too respectable personage to be quite waved aside.
Tembarom began to enjoy himself a little more.Lady Celia and Lady Edith began to enjoy themselves a little more also.Lady Mallowe was filled with admiring delight.Captain Palliser took in the situation, and asked himself questions about it.On her part, Miss Alicia was restored to the happiness any lack of appreciation of her "dear boy"touchingly disturbed.In circumstances such as these he appeared to the advantage which in a brief period would surely reveal his wonderful qualities.She clung so to his "wonderful qualities" because in all the three-volumed novels of her youth the hero, debarred from early advantages and raised by the turn of fortune's wheel to splendor, was transformed at once into a being of the highest accomplishments and the most polished breeding, and ended in the third volume a creature before whom emperors paled.And how more than charmingly cordial his grace's manner was when he left them!
"To-morrow," he said, "if my daughters do not discover that I have injured some more than vital organ, I shall call to proffer my thanks with the most immense formality.I shall get out of the carriage in the manner customary in respectable neighborhoods, not roll out at your feet.Afterward you will, I hope, come and dine with us.I am devoured by a desire to become more familiar with The Earth."
