The duke sighed as his eyes wandered musingly over the stalwart, well-proportioned frame.
"You ought to have been in the army, Yorke," he said.
Lord Auchester laughed.
"So I should have been if they hadn't made the possession of brains a sine qua non; it seems you want brains for pretty nearly everything nowadays; and it's just brains I'm short of, you see, Dolph."
"You have everything else," said the duke, in a low voice.
He sighed and turned his head away; not that he envied his cousin his handsome face and straight limbs.
"You haven't told me what you wanted me for, Dolph," said Lord Auchester, after a pause, during which both men had been listening half unconsciously to the sweet voice in the cottage opposite.
"I wanted—nothing," said the duke.
"There is nothing I can do for you?"
"Nothing; unless," with a sigh and a wistful smile, "unless you can by the wave of a magician's wand change this crooked body of mine for something like your own."