"Ring the bell. Stand aside, and say nothing," he said, in a tone of stern command which he seldom used.
The landlady, who, like Hamlet, was fat and scant of breath, was heard panting up the stairs, knocked timidly, and, in response to the duke's "Come in," entered, and looked from one to the other, in a fearsome, curious fashion.
"Did you ring?"
She would not venture to say "Your grace" this time.
The duke smiled at her.
"Yes," he said, gravely but pleasantly. "His Grace the Duke of Rothbury will stay with me for a few days if you can give him a room, Mrs.—Mrs.——."
"Whiting, sir, if you please. Oh, certainly, sir," and she dropped a courtesy to Yorke Auchester. "Certainly your grace. It's humble and homely like, but——."
Grey edged her gently and persuasively out of the room, and when he had followed her the duke leaned back his chair, and looking up at the handsome face of his cousin, laughed.
"It's like a scene in one of the new farces, isn't it, Yorke—I beg your pardon, Godolphin, Duke of Rothbury?"