"I would if I could, Dolph," said the other, bending over him, and laying a pair of strong hands soothingly on the invalid's bent shoulders.
"I know that, Yorke. But you cannot, can you? I dare say you think I am a peevish, discontented wretch, and that I ought, as the poor Emperor of Germany said, to bear my pain without complaining——."
"No, Dolph; I think you complain very little, and face the music first rate," put in the other.
"Thanks. I try to most times, and I could succeed better than I do if I were always alone, but sometimes——," he sighed bitterly. "Why is it that the world is so false, Yorke? Are there no honest men besides you and Grey, and half a dozen others I could mention? And are there no honest women at all?"
Yorke Auchester raised his eyebrows and laughed.
"What's wrong with the women?" he said.
The duke leaned his head upon his hand, and partially hid his face, which had suddenly become red.
"Everything is wrong with them, Yorke," he said, gravely and in a low voice. "You know, or perhaps you do not know, how I esteem, reverence, respect a woman; perhaps because I dare not love them."
Yorke Auchester nodded.
"If all the men felt as you do about women there would be no bad ones in the world, Dolph," he said.