CHAPTER VI
PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
I
THE DUKE, in his morning-room, was reading a letter which had just come to him by post. As he folded it neatly and returned it to an envelope which bore the stamp of the south-eastern postal district, the light of humor played over an expressive face. And when, after much reflection, he took the letter again from its envelope and solemnly re-read it, the look deepened to the verge of the saturnine.
Still pondering what he plainly considered to be a priceless document, a succession of odd grimaces caused him to purse his lips and to frown perplexedly. At last he dropped his glasses and broke into a guffaw.
Lying back in his invalid’s chair, still in the throes of an infrequent laughter, he was presently brought back to the plane of gravity by the unexpected arrival of Lady Wargrave upon the scene.
She entered the room with a gladiatorial air.
The face of his Grace underwent a sudden change at the sight of this unwelcome visitor.
Charlotte seated herself ponderously. And then having allowed a moment’s pause for dramatic effect, she said, marking her brother with an intent eye, “The plot thickens.”
“Plot?” he said, warily.
“Do you wish me to believe that you have not heard the latest development?”
“Why speak in riddles, Charlotte?” He was trying to suppress a growing irritability.
Charlotte smiled frostily. “One should make allowances, no doubt, for natural simplicity. But even to the aloofness of philosophers there’s a limit, my friend. You must know that there is only one subject in all our minds just now.”
The Duke, a concentrated gaze upon Charlotte, did not allow himself to admit anything of the kind. For one thing they were lifelong adversaries. Charlotte was a meddlesome woman, an intriguer and a busybody in the sacred name of Family. They had tried many a fall with each other in the past, and although Providence in making Albert John the head of the house had given him an unfair advantage, he was often hard set by Charlotte’s malice and persistency.
“Have you spoken to that young wretch?” Charlotte lost no time in coming boldly to the horses.
“I have not,” was the sour reply.
“Is it quite wise, do you think, to let the grass grow under your feet?—particularly having regard to the fact that the person happens to be a niece of Mrs. Sanderson’s.” This was a very shrewd blow, whose manner of delivery had been most carefully considered beforehand. Indeed, so neatly was it planted now that his Grace got the shock of his life. The surprise was so painfully sharp that he found it hard to meet the foe without flinching. He had to make a great effort to hold himself in hand. And Charlotte, a cold eye upon him, followed up in an extremely businesslike manner. She had a very strong hand to play and a true warrior, if ever there was one, she was set on wringing out of it the last ounce of advantage. There had come to her at last, after many a year of watching and waiting, an opportunity beyond her hopes and her prayers.
“Last evening poor Sarah came to me in great distress,” proceeded Charlotte. “Muriel, it appears, had been electioneering in the constituency of a certain person, and in the course of her wanderings up and down the suburbs, she found herself quite by chance at the house of Mrs. Sanderson’s brother-in-law.”
By this time his Grace had sufficiently recovered from the blow that had been dealt him to ask how Muriel had contrived to make that particular discovery.
It seemed that she had found Mrs. Sanderson there.
“The long arm of coincidence,” opined his Grace with a wry smile. He opined further that the whole thing began to sound uncommonly like a novel.
“Sober reality, I assure you, Johnnie. And sober reality can beat any novel in the power of the human mind to invent, that’s why it’s so stupid to write them. Muriel entered the house by chance, Mrs. Sanderson came there, and presently, if you please, Master Jack arrived by motor with the young person. By the way, Muriel says she is very good looking.”
“Quite a family party.” His Grace achieved a light tone with difficulty. “But I incline to think, Charlotte, you a little overstate the facts.”
“It is the story Muriel told Sarah.”
“Well, I am very unwilling to believe that Mrs. Sanderson knew what was going on.”
“Pray, why not?” He was raked by a goshawk’s eye.
“She would have told me.”
Somehow those lame, impotent words revealed a man badly hit. Charlotte saw that at once, and forthwith proceeded to turn the fact to pitiless advantage. A gust of coarse laughter swept the room.
“Johnnie, it’s the first time I’ve read you a fool. Simple Simon! Do you think a woman who has learned to play her cards like that is the one to give away her hand?”
This was a second blow planted neatly on the vizor of his Grace. In spite of his armor of cynicism he could be seen to wince a little. And the silence which followed enabled the implacable foe to perceive that he was shaken worse than it seemed reasonable to expect him to be.
“Perhaps you’ll now permit her to be sent away. A sordid intriguer. She must go at once.”
In the trying moment which followed, the Duke, badly hipped, fought valiantly to pull himself together. But somehow he only just managed to do so.
“You make a mistake, Charlotte,” he said, with an effort that clearly hurt him. “She is not that kind of person. You always have made that mistake. She is a superior woman in every way. At least, I have always found her so. I can’t imagine such a woman intriguing for anybody.”
“Shows how little you know ’em, Johnnie.” Another Gargantuan gust swept the room. “Every woman intrigues unless she’s a born fool, and this housekeeper nurse of yours is very far from being that—believe me.”
For a brief, but uncomfortable moment the Duke thought the matter over with an air of curious perplexity. Then he said abruptly and with defiance:
“I must have further information.”
“Sarah has the details. It would be well, no doubt, to have her views on the matter.”
Whereupon Charlotte rose massively, crossed to the bell and rang it in order that a much tormented male should enjoy this further privilege.
II
The eldest daughter of the house, when she came on the scene, found the atmosphere decidedly electric. Her father was glaring with very ominous eyes; while it was clear from the look on the face of Aunt Charlotte that she was under the impression that she had downed him at last. No doubt she had, but if those eyes meant anything there was still a lot of fight in the stricken warrior.
Sarah herself was a long, thin, flat-chested person. Totally devoid of imagination, her horizon was so limited that outside the Family nothing or nobody mattered. And yet she was not in the least domesticated. In fact, she was not in the least anything. She was nobly and consistently null, without opinions or ideas, without humor, charm or amenity. Her mental outlook had somehow thrown back to the 1840’s, yet with all her limitations, apart from which very little remained of her, she was a thoroughly sound, exceedingly honest Christian gentlewoman of thirty-eight.
Sarah, it seemed, having heard Muriel’s story, had taken counsel of the dowager. And at once realizing the extreme gravity of the whole affair, both ladies determined to make the most of a long-sought opportunity to give the housekeeper her quietus. Sarah herself, who was inclined to be embittered and vindictive on this particular point, fell in only too readily with Aunt Charlotte’s desire to take full advantage of such a golden chance. Called upon now to divulge all that she knew, the eldest daughter re-told Muriel’s remarkable story of her meeting with Mrs. Sanderson, Jack and the girl, in the course of political endeavors at Laxton. The story, amazing as it was, was undoubtedly authentic.
“Of course, father,” was Sarah’s conclusion, very pointedly expressed, “she will simply have to go. And the sooner the better, as no doubt you agree.”
To Sarah’s deep annoyance, however, her sire seemed very far from agreeing.
“There is no direct evidence of collusion,” he said. “And knowing Mrs. Sanderson to be an old and tried servant, who has always had our welfare at heart, I am very unwilling to place such a construction upon what may be no more than a rather odd coincidence.”
Sarah was too deeply angry to reply. But she looked on grimly while the ruthless Charlotte showly marshaled her forces. The quarrel was a very pretty one. Yet the Duke, now his back was to the wall, was able to take excellent care of himself. Moreover, he flatly declined to hear a worthy woman traduced until she had had a chance of meeting charges so recklessly, and as it seemed, malevolently brought against her.
“From the way in which you speak of her,” said the incensed Charlotte, “you appear to regard her as a person of importance.”
“Charlotte, I regard her as thoroughly honest, trustworthy, competent—in fact a good woman in every way.”
“You willfully blind yourself, Johnnie. This creature has thrown dust in your eyes. But it will be no more than you deserve if one day her niece is installed as mistress here. You will not live to see it, yet it would be no more than bare justice if you did.”
“Pernicious nonsense,” rejoined his Grace. “Perhaps in the circumstances it would be well to hear what Mrs. Sanderson has to say for herself.”
“She is bound to lie.”
Somehow the precision of the language stung his Grace.
“You are not entitled to say that,” he flashed.
“It is the common sense of the situation and one has a perfect right to express it.”
“Not here, Charlotte—not in this room before me. If I trust people implicitly—there are not many that I do—I trust them implicitly, and I can’t allow even privileged people to speak of them in that way—at any rate, in my presence.”
This explosion was so unlooked for that it took the ladies aback. In all the years they had fought him they had never seen him moved so deeply. A new Albert John had suddenly emerged. Never before had the head of the house allowed these enemies to catch a glimpse of such quixotic, such fantastic chivalry. Charlotte was sourly amused, Sarah, amazed; but both ladies were deeply angry.
However, they had fully made up their minds that the housekeeper must go. Indeed, that had been already arranged at the after-dinner conference at Hill Street the previous evening. They were convinced that a woman whom they intensely disliked, whose peculiar position they greatly resented, was at last driven into a corner. The Duke’s indecently bold defense of her had taken them by surprise, but it only made them the more determined to push their present advantage ruthlessly home.
III
Suddenly Sarah rose and pressed the bell. She demanded of the servant who answered it that Mrs. Sanderson should appear.
Harriet, already apprised of Lady Wargrave’s arrival, came at once. She was quite prepared for a painful scene. Only too well had she reason to know the state of feeling in regard to herself. She had always been so able and discreet that she had enforced the outward respect of those whom she served so loyally. But she well knew that she was not liked by the ladies of the house, and that the special position she had come to hold owing to the decline of the Duke’s health, was a casus belli between him and the members of his family. She had long been aware that in the opinion of the Dinneford ladies it was no part of a housekeeper’s functions to act as a trained nurse to their invalid father.
Harriet had a natural awe of Lady Wargrave, which she shared with all under that roof; for Lady Sarah she had the deep respect which she extended to every member of the august clan it had been her privilege to serve for so many years. In the devout eyes of Harriet Sanderson each unit of that clan was not as other men and women. In the matter of Bridport House and all that it stood for, she was more royalist than the king.
From the dark hour, a week ago now, in which the news had come by a side wind, that the fates by a stroke of perverse cruelty, as it seemed, had thrown Mary across the path of Mr. Dinneford, she had hardly known how to lay her head on her pillow. To her mind the whole thing was simply calamitous. It had thrown her into a state of profound unhappiness. She now came into the room looking worn and ill, yet fully prepared for short shift to be meted out to her by those whom she found assembled there.
The ladies looked for defiance, no doubt. And they may have looked for an undercurrent of malicious triumph. Yet if they expected either of these things their mistake was at once very clear. It was hard to find a trace of the successful intriguer in the haggard cheeks and somber eyes of the woman before them. But to minds such as theirs portents of this kind could not be expected to weigh in the scale against their preconceived ideas.
It was left to Lady Wargrave to fix the charge. And this she did with a blunt precision which was itself a form of insult. The icy tones were scrupulously polite, nothing was said which one in her position was not entitled to say in such circumstances, yet the whole effect was so deadly in its venom as to be absolutely pitiless.
At first Harriet was overwhelmed. The force of the attack was beyond anything she had looked for. Moreover, it seemed to fill the Duke, an unwilling auditor, with anger and pain. He moved uneasily in his chair, yet he was not able to check the cold torrent of quasi-insult by word of mouth, for none knew better than Lady Wargrave how to administer castigation without going outside the rules of the game.
Even when the shock of the first blows was past, Harriet could find no means of defending herself. She was a very proud woman. Her blamelessness in what she could only regard as a very odious matter was so clear to her own mind that it did not seem to call for re-statement. She, too, said nothing. But a hot flush came upon the thin cheek.
Lady Wargrave grew more and more incensed by a silence, the cause of which she completely mistook.
“You have been nearly thirty years here, Mrs. Sanderson, and you have been guilty of a wicked abuse of trust.”
The painful pause which followed this final blow was broken at last by the Duke.
“You must forgive me, Charlotte, if I say that the facts of the case as they have been presented, hardly justify such a statement.”
The tone was honey. And it was in such ironical contrast to Charlotte’s own that nothing could have shown more clearly the wide gulf between their points of view or the envenomed strife of many years now coming to a head.
“They prove the charge to the hilt.” The hawk’s eyes of Charlotte contracted ominously.
“What charge?—if you don’t mind stating it explicitly.”
“Mrs. Sanderson has used her position here to make her niece known to the future head of this house, she has connived at their intimacy, she appears to have fostered it in every way.”
“I don’t think you are entitled to say that, Charlotte.” The Duke spoke slowly and pointedly, and then he turned to Harriet with an air of such delicate politeness that it added fuel to the flame which was withering her traducers. “If it is not asking too much, Mrs. Sanderson,” he said, with a smile of grave kindness, “I should personally be very grateful if you would be wicked enough to defend yourself. Let me say at once that I am far from accepting the construction Lady Wargrave has placed on the matter. But her zeal for a time-honored institution is so great that if her judgment is outrun, it seems only kind to forgive her.”
Such oblique but resounding blows in the sconce of Charlotte filled her with a fury hard to hold in check.
“What defense is possible?” Her voice was like a crane. “The facts are there to look at. Mrs. Sanderson’s niece has extracted a promise of marriage.”
The Duke turned to Harriet rather anxiously.
“I sincerely hope Lady Wargrave has been misinformed,” he said.
Harriet flushed.
“I only know”—speech for her had become almost intolerably difficult—“that Mr. Dinneford has asked my brother-in-law’s consent to his marrying her.”
The Duke may have been deeply annoyed, but not a line of his face betrayed him.
“Who is your brother-in-law, Mrs. Sanderson?”
Harriet told him.
“A very honest man”—the Duke checked a laugh—“I have been honored by a letter from him this morning.”
Even the lacerated Harriet could not forbear to smile.
“I am sure,” said she, “he will not let Mary marry Mr. Dinneford if he can help it.”
“Why not?” sharply interposed Lady Wargrave.
“Why not, Charlotte?” Her brother took upon himself to answer the question. “Because Sergeant Kelly is a very sensible and enlightened man who evidently tries to see things in their right relation.”
“Fiddle-de-dee!” said Charlotte, with the bluntness for which she was famous. “Depend upon it, he knows as well as anybody on which side his bread is buttered.”
Her brother shook his head. “I think,” he said, “if you had had the privilege of reading Sergeant Kelly’s letter you would be agreeably surprised. At any rate, he seems quite to share your view of the sacredness of the social fabric.”
“Let us look at the facts,” said Charlotte. “This marriage has to be prevented at all costs. And I hope it is not too much to ask Mrs. Sanderson that she will give us any assistance which may lie in her power.”
The look upon Lady Wargrave’s face, as she made the request, clearly implied that help from such a quarter must, in the nature of things, be negligible. But in spite of the covert insult in the tone and manner of the dowager, Harriet replied very simply that there was nothing she would leave undone to prevent such a catastrophe.
“I am quite sure, Mrs. Sanderson, we can count upon that,” said the Duke, in a tone which softened considerably the humiliating silence with which the promise had been received.
“To begin with,” said the Duke, turning to Harriet, “I shall ask your brother-in-law to come and see me. Evidently he is one of these sensible, straightforward men who can be trusted to take a large view of things.”
The face of Lady Wargrave expressed less optimism.
“There is one question I would like to put to Mrs. Sanderson,” she suddenly interposed. It seemed that she had reserved for a final attack the weapon on which she counted most. “Be good enough to tell me this.” The ruthless eye was fixed on Harriet. “How long, Mrs. Sanderson, have you known of Mr. Dinneford’s intimacy with your niece?”
There was a slight but painful pause, and it was broken by a rather faltering reply.
“It is just a week since I first heard of it, my lady.”
“Just a week! And in the whole of that time you have not thought well to mention the matter?”
The tone cut like a knife. And the stab it dealt was so deep that Harriet was unable to answer the question which propelled it.
“Why didn’t you mention it, Mrs. Sanderson?”
The blood fled suddenly from Harriet’s cheek. She grew nervous and confused.
“Please answer the question.” There was now a ring of triumph in the pitiless tone.
“I wished to spare his Grace unpleasantness,” stammered Harriet.
“Very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Sanderson,” said Lady Wargrave, bitingly. “No doubt his Grace appreciates your regard for his feelings. But even if that was the motive, surely it was your duty to report the matter to Lady Sarah as soon as it came to your knowledge.”
The hesitation of Harriet grew exceedingly painful to witness.
“Yes,” she said at last. Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes. “I begin to see now that it was my duty. I wish very much that I had mentioned the matter to Lady Sarah.”
Both ladies were so fully set on the overthrow of this serpent that the air of touching, exquisite simpleness went for nothing. But in any case they would have been too obtuse to notice it.
“We all wish that.” Lady Wargrave pursued her advantage pitilessly. “And I am sure I speak for his Grace as well as for the rest of us.” She trained a look of malicious triumph upon the perplexed and frowning face of her brother.
As became a consummate tactician who now had the affair well in hand, Charlotte gave the Duke a moment to intervene if he felt inclined to do so. But she well knew, a kind of instinct told her, that the attack had succeeded completely. The housekeeper made such a feeble attempt to parry it, that for the time being her champion was dumb. Nor was this surprising. In the opinion of both ladies the sinister charge of collusion had now been proved to the hilt.
Lady Wargrave having given her brother due opportunity for a further defense of Mrs. Sanderson, which he had quite failed to grasp, proceeded coldly and at leisure to administer the coup de grâce.
“I am afraid, Mrs. Sanderson,” she said, “that in these circumstances only one course is open to you now.”
She was too adroit, however, to state exactly what that course was. She was content merely to suggest it. But Harriet did not need to be told what the particular alternative was that her ladyship had in mind.
“You wish me to resign my position,” she said, in a low calm voice. She turned with tears in her eyes to the eldest daughter of the house. “I beg leave to give a month’s notice from today, my lady. If you would like me to go sooner, I will do so at any time you wish.”
The words and manner showed a consideration wholly lacking in the measure meted out to herself. There was so little of pride or of wounded dignity that the tears were running in a stream down the pale cheeks. Uppermost in Harriet Sanderson was still a feeling of profound veneration for those to whom she had dedicated the best years of her life.
IV
The ladies of the Family had won the day. Mrs. Sanderson was going. It was an occasion for rejoicing. She had intrigued disgracefully; moreover, it had long felt that this clever, unscrupulous, plausible woman had gained a dangerous ascendancy over the head of the house. But Aunt Charlotte, it seemed, with the tactical skill for which she was famous, had driven her into a corner and had forced her to surrender.
In the opinion of Sarah, Mrs. Sanderson had behaved very well. It was, of course, impossible to trust that sort of person; but to give the woman her due, she had appeared to feel her position acutely; she had promised, moreover, to undo as far as in her lay the mischief she had caused. The ladies saw no inconsistency in that. They had formed a low opinion of Mrs. Sanderson—for what reason they didn’t quite know—but now that she had received her congée and they were to have their own way at last there would be no harm in taking up a magnanimous attitude towards her.
As far as it went this was well enough, but a serious and solemn task had been imposed upon various people by the circumstances of the case. It now seemed of vital importance to those concerned that Jack should become engaged to Marjorie without further delay. With that end in view the ladies of the Family were now working like beavers. But all they had done so far had not been enough. In vain had the lure been laid in sight of the bird. In vain had they used the arts and the subtleties of their sex. For several weeks now Jack and Marjorie had been thrown together on every conceivable pretext, yet the only result had been that the future head of Bridport House had re-affirmed a fixed intention of taking a wife from the stage.
Three days after Lady Wargrave had gained her signal triumph over Mrs. Sanderson, the Duke was at home to an odd visitor. In obedience to the written request of his Grace’s private secretary, Sergeant Kelly presented himself about noon at Bridport House.
Fortunately, Joe had been able to arrange for a day off for the purpose. Thus the dignity of man, also the dignity of the Metropolitan Force, were upheld by impressive mufti. He had discarded uniform for his best Sunday cutaway, old and rather shining it was true, but black and braided, with every crease removed by Eliza’s iron; a pair of light gray trousers, superbly checked; a white choker tie and a horse-shoe pin; while to crown all, a massive gold albert, a recent gift from Mary, was slung across a noble expanse of broadcloth waistcoat.
“Good morning, Sergeant Kelly,” said a musical voice, as soon as the visitor was announced. The Duke in the depths of his invalid chair looked at him from under the brows of a satyr. “Excuse my rising. I’m a bit below the weather, as you see.”
Joe, secretly prepared for anything in the matter of his reception, was impressed most favorably by such a greeting. Somehow the note of cordiality was so exactly that of one man of the world to another, that Joe was conscious of a subtle feeling of flattery. He was invited to sit, and he sat on the extreme verge of a Sheraton masterpiece, pensively twisting between his hands a brand-new bowler hat purchased that morning en route to Bridport House.
“Sergeant Kelly,” said the Duke, speaking with a directness that Joe admired, “I liked your letter. It was that of a sensible man.”
“Good of your Grace to say so,” said Joe, a nice mingling of dignity and deference.
“I agree with you that the matter is extremely vexatious.”
Joe took a long breath. “It’s haggeravating, sir,” said he.
“Quite so,” said his Grace, with a whimsical smile. “But as a matter of curiosity, may I ask what had led you to that conclusion?”
“Just this, sir.” Joe laid the new bowler hat on the carpet, squared his shoulders and fixed the Duke with his eye. “The aristocracy’s the aristocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower h’orders are the lower h’orders—there they are and you can’t alter ’em. Leastways that was the opinion of the Marquis.”
“I’m not sure that I know your friend,” said the Duke with charming urbanity, “but I’m convinced his views are sound. If I read your letter aright, you are as much opposed to the suggested alliance between your daughter and my kinsman as I am myself.”
“That is so, your Grace. It simply won’t do.”
“I quite agree,” said the Duke, “but from your point of view—why won’t it? I ask merely for information.”
“Why won’t it, sir?” said Joe, surprisedly. “Don’t I say the aristocracy’s the aristocracy?”
“In other words you disapprove of them on principle?”
“No, sir, it’s because I respect ’em so highly,” said Joe, with a simple largeness that bore no trace of the sycophant. “I’ve not reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years without learning that it won’t do to keep on mixing things up in the way we’re doing at present. Things are in a state of flux, as you might say.”
“Profoundly true,” said the Duke, with a fine appearance of gravity. “And I have asked you to come here, Sergeant Kelly, to advise me in a very delicate matter. In the first place, I assume that you have withheld your consent to this ridiculous marriage.”
“That is so, your Grace. But the young parties are that headstrong they may not respect their elders. I told the young gentleman what my feeling was, and I told the girl, but I’m sorry to say they laughed at me. Yes, sir, society is in a state of flux and no mistake.”
“Well, Sergeant Kelly, what’s to be done?”
“I should like your Grace to speak a word to the parties. Seemingly they take no notice of me. But perhaps they might of you, sir.”
The Duke smiled and shook his head.
“Well, sir, they only laugh at me,” said Joe. “But with you it would be different.” And then with admirable directness: “Why not see the girl and give her your views in the matter? She’s very sensible and she’s been well brought up.”
The Duke looked at his visitor steadily. If his Grace was in search of arrière pensée, he failed to find a sign of it in that transparently honest countenance.
“A bold suggestion,” he said, with a smile. “But I don’t know that I have any particular aptitude for handling headstrong young women.”
Joe promptly rebutted the ducal modesty. “Your words would carry weight, sir. She’s a girl who knows what’s what, I give you my word.”
The Duke could hardly keep from laughing outright at the sublime seriousness of this old bobby. But at the same time curiosity stirred him. What sort of a girl was this who owned such a genial grotesque of a father? It would impinge on the domain of comic opera to instal such a being as the future châtelaine of Bridport House. Still, as his visitor shrewdly said, society was in a state of flux.
“My own belief is,” said Joe, “that she’s the best girl in England, and if your Grace would set your point of view before her as you have set it before me, I’m thinking she’d do her best to help us.”
The Duke was impressed by such candor, such openness, such simplicity. After all, there was just a chance that things might take a more hopeful turn.
“She’s not one to go where she’s not wanted, sir,” said Joe. “And my belief is that if you have a little talk with her and let her know how you feel about it, you may be spared a deal o’ trouble.”
“You really think that?” said the Duke with a sigh of relief.
“I do, sir. Leastways, if you ain’t, Joseph Kelly will be disappointed.”
Such disinterestedness was not exactly flattering, yet the Duke was touched by it. Indeed, Sergeant Kelly’s sturdy common sense was so reassuring that he was invited to have a cigar. At the request of his host, he pressed the bell, one long and one short, and in the process of time a servant appeared with a box of Coronas. Joe chose one, smelt it, placed it to his ear and then put it sedately in his pocket.
“I’ll not smoke it now, sir,” he said urbanely. “I’ll keep it until I can really enjoy it.”
He was graciously invited to take several. With an air of polite deprecation he helped himself to three more. Then he realized that the time had come to withdraw.
The parting was one of mutual esteem. If the girl would consent to pay a visit to Bridport House, the Duke would see her gladly. But again his Grace affirmed that he was not an optimist. Society was in a state of flux, he quite agreed, democracy was knocking at the gate and none knew the next turn in the game. Still the Duke was not unmindful of Sergeant Kelly’s remarkable disinterestedness, and took a cordial leave of him, fully prepared to follow his advice in this affair of thorns.
As soon as the door had closed upon the dignified form of Sergeant Kelly, the Duke lay back in his chair fighting a storm of laughter. Cursed with a sense of humor, at all times a great handicap for such a one as himself, its expression had seldom been less opportune or more uncomfortable. For there was really nothing to laugh at in a matter of this kind. The thing was too grimly serious.
Still, for the moment, this amateur of the human comedy was the victim of a divided mind. He wanted to laugh until he ached over this solemn policeman upholding the fabric of society.
“By gad, he’s right,” Albert John ruminated, as he dipped gout-ridden fingers in his ravished cigar box. “Things are in a state of flux.” He cut off the end of a cigar. “My own view is that this monstrous bluff which these poor fools have allowed some of us to put up since the Conquest, more or less, will mighty soon be about our ears. However,”—Albert John placed the cigar between his lips—“it hardly does to say so.”
For a time this was the sum of his reflections. Then he pressed the bell at his elbow and the servant reappeared.
“Ask Mr. Twalmley to be good enough to telephone to Mr. Dinneford. I wish to see him at once.”