"Lord Auchester?" he said, and his brows knit thoughtfully. "It is a strange place for a man about town, like Lord Auchester, to stay at."
"He has been fishing."
"There is no fishing there," he remarked, and he put one glove on, and took it off again, the frown still on his face.
"He has been to see the duke. You may know that the duke and he are great friends. They are cousins."
He shook his head, with an impatience strange and unusual with him—the cool, self-possessed, city man.
"I know very little about such persons, Lady Eleanor," he said, gravely. "Your father, the late earl, was the only nobleman I ever knew, and—I don't mean to be offensive—I ever wanted to know."
Lady Eleanor looked at him with faint, well-bred surprise; then she smiled.
"If reports speak truly, you are likely to be a nobleman yourself some day, Mr. Duncombe. You have only to enter Parliament——."
He shook his head by way of stopping her.
"I have no ambition in that direction, Lady Eleanor," he said, almost gloomily. "I am a man of business, and care nothing for titles. I was going to say and for little else; but I suppose that wouldn't be true. I do care for money; I've been bred to that. Is there anything else you would like to say to me?" he broke off abruptly.