"And what will he say?" she asks, with a smile.
"He? Oh——." He stops. Yes, what will the duke say when he hears that Leslie "has made love," as he will put it, to the supposed duke?
"Look here, dearest," he says, after a pause.
"Why should you or I care a brass farthing what any one thinks or says! The only one I care about is your father."
"Ah, papa!" she murmurs; and she pictures to herself Mr. Lisle's amazement and distress at what he will regard as a "fuss" and disturbance of his placid "artistic" life.
"Are you afraid, Leslie?" Yorke asks.
"I—I don't know. I am all in all to him; and—I do not know what he will say. He will not be pleased; I mean he will see more plainly than I do that I am not fit to be your wife, that I am not suitable for a duchess. And he will say it is so sudden—and it is, is it not? If he had had a little time to—to get used to it——."
"Let us give him time," he says. "I was going to him now straight away to ask him to give you to me; but if you think it better, if you wish it, it shall be exactly as you think and wish, dearest. I will wait for a little while, until he knows me better, and has got used to me. I suppose it would startle and upset him if I were to go now."
"Oh, yes, yes!" she says. "You do not know how nervous he is, and how easily upset."
"I think I can guess," he responds, thoughtfully.