The marchioness rested her case there.
"Where's that old Rembrandt copy of yours now?" Telborn asked his host, fixing his glass in his eye and glaring about the room. "It used to hang over there."
"Oh, that's up in London on exhibition," writhed his lordship. "Some vow it's real, you know."
"Real—huh!" returned Telborn expressively.
"Well now, it may be real, you know," said the duke, coming forward with valor. "And if it isn't, ever so many good pictures are copies. I say, Doody, haven't we a lot of copies at Puddlewood?"
But the duchess was otherwise interested.
"You've heard about Emily, of course," she was saying, addressing the marchioness. "The poor thing's run off with the second coachman. A very nice-appearing man, I believe. But it seems that he has one wife already."
"How terrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, who was sitting close to the fire, yet shivered slightly.
"People do run off sometimes," reminded Carleigh, who was standing beside her. "I don't know that it's so terrible. It settles things quickly."
"But not when the man's married; only when the woman's married," the duchess qualified. "When the woman's married it does settle things, of course; but when the man's married, it doesn't.