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The Duke Decides

Leonie, in her turn, was interested in the reserved young Englishman, who had so little to say about his doings in America, and less about his position and prospects in his native land. As he paced with his slight limp at her side or lounged with her at the rail, she tried to draw him out; but she could get nothing from him but that he had been in New York on business, and that business was taking him home. Yet, though reticent on his own affairs, he talked freely about all that concerned herself, and painted vivid word-pictures of the delights that awaited her in London.

The girl, having nothing to conceal, told him freely of herself and of her plans and projects. She and her mother were going to stay with English friends in London till the end of the season, when perhaps they would run over to Paris and Rome for a month before returning to America in the autumn. Her father, Senator Sherman, was to have accompanied them; but he had been detained by public business at Washington, and was to join them a little later in London.

On the fifth day of the voyage, as the St. Paul was approaching the Irish coast, Leonie and Beaumanoir were sitting on deck after

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