“Have something the matter with you: flutters or something,” I suggested.
The ghost of a smile appeared on her face.
“You’ll stay?” she asked.
I had to stay, anyhow. Perhaps I ought to have said so, and not stolen credit; but all I did was to nod again.
“And, if I ask you, you’ll—you’ll stand between me and him?”
I hoped that my meeting with the duke would not be in a strong light; but I only said:
“Rather! I’ll do anything I can, of course.”
She did not thank me; she looked at me again. Then she observed.
“My mother will be back soon.”
“And I had better not be here?”
“No.”
I advanced to the table again, and laid my hand on the box containing the Cardinal’s necklace.
“And this?” I asked in a careless tone.
“Ought I to send them back?”
“You don’t want to?”
“What’s the use of saying I do? I love them. Besides, he’ll see through it. He’ll know that I mean I won’t come. I daren’t—I daren’t show him that!”
Then I made a little venture; for, fingering the box idly, I said:
“It would be uncommonly handsome of you to give ‘em to the duchess.”
“To the duchess?” she gasped in wondering tones.
“You see,” I remarked, “either they are the
