“But he—he said he was the Duke.”
“He said so to me also,” observed the Duke of Belleville.
The lady looked at him long and keenly; there was, however, a simple honesty about the Duke’s manner that attracted her sympathy and engaged her confidence.
“Perhaps I’d better tell you all about it,” said she, with a sigh.
“Not unless you desire to do so, I beg,” said the Duke, with a wave of his hand.
“I am nineteen,” began the lady. The Duke heaved an envious sigh. “I live with my aunt,” she continued. “We live a very retired life. Since I left college—which I did prematurely owing to a difference of opinion with the Principal—I have seen hardly anyone. In the course of a visit to the seaside I met the gentleman who—who——”
“From whom we have just parted?” suggested the Duke.
“Thank you, yes. Not to weary you with details——”
“Principles weary me, but not details,” interposed the Duke.
“In fact,” continued the young lady, “he professed to be in love with me. Now my aunt, although not insensible to the great position which he offered me (for of course he represented himself as the Duke of Belleville) entertains the opinion that no girl should marry till she is twenty-one. Moreover she considered that the acquaintance was rather short.”