vants and an acre of ducal palace being run for a simple body like me is too ridiculous, especially with the rightful owner ready to take possession.”
She had been both puzzled and attracted by her cousin at General Sadgrove’s that afternoon. As a child she had heard so much contemptuous obloquy poured on the absent ne’er-do-well that, in spite of his generosity to Alec Forsyth and his consideration for herself, she had been prepared to cling to the old prejudice. It had, however, at once broken down under the pathetic plea for friendship which she had discerned in the Duke’s troubled eyes, for her womanly insight told her that the new head of the family was under the influence of a mental strain almost amounting to physical distress.
“He looks like a man sitting on an infernal machine, listening to the tick-tack of the clockwork,” she reflected. “Yet I don’t think he’s wicked, or the sort of person with a past likely to fly up and hit him in the face. I wish I knew what he is grizzling about, so that Alec and I could do him a good turn in exchange for his benevolence.”
She had risen with the intention of retiring
[88]
