"Is thinking of making such a match," she said in a low voice.
Ralph Duncombe looked at the carpet.
"It scarcely seems—pardon me—scarcely seems credible. I do not know Lord Auchester, but from what I have heard of him I should think he would be the last man to be blind to the consequences of contracting a marriage with a lady who was considered his inferior in the social scale."
"Ah, yes!" she said with a sigh. "So anyone who knew him would have said; but—but—in this matter even the wisest men are fools."
He smiled gravely.
"Yes, fools!" she said bitterly; "they are caught by a pretty face, a look in the eyes, a curve on the lip, a dimple in the cheek——." She rose and took one or two paces, as if her impatience would not permit of her sitting still any longer. "At any rate, Lord Auchester has been so caught!" she wound up suddenly.
"And you wish——?"
"Ah, I scarcely know," she answered, stretching out her hands. "He is doing this thing secretly. He is keeping it from his friends. From the duke, from—from me, from all of us."
"Then he is half ashamed of it?" he suggested.
"Perhaps so," she said. "Perhaps so. But if he has made up his mind to do it he will go through with it, in spite of all arguments and attempts to dissuade him. Yorke—" she used his Christian name unconsciously—"Yorke is one of the sweetest tempered men—you can lead him with a silken thread, until he has resolved to do anything; then——." She had turned to him and looked at him beseechingly. "Can you help me, us; his friends, I mean, generally? He is so popular, so much liked. It would be a shame and a sin that such a one should be wrecked and ruined. In such a case a man should be saved in spite of himself. Can nothing be done? I sent for you, because you have always helped me, have always been so kind——." She stopped and turned her head away.