"Quite always," assented Yorke Auchester. "Chops, soles, and a custard pudding. Right. Sure you won't have any, Dolph?"
The duke shook his head.
"This is as much as I can digest," he said, tapping the basin before him indifferently. "Now tell me the news, Yorke—your grace."
Yorke laughed.
"News? I don't think there's any you don't know."
"Not London news, I dare say," said the duke; "though I don't know much of that. I don't go out more often than I am obliged to. I don't dance, you see," he smiled, "and if I go to the theater I find that I distract the attention of the audience from what is going on upon the stage. I suppose they consider me as interesting, as good, if not better than any play. And as to plays, there aren't many good ones now. The last time I went was to that burlesque at the Diadem Theater, and everybody seemed 'gone,' as you call it, on that dancer. What's her name, eh?"
Yorke Auchester was in the act of disboning his second sole. He stopped and looked up, paused for a moment with a rather singular expression on his frank, handsome face.
"Finetta, do you mean?" he said, slowly.
"Yes, that's the name, I think," said the duke, stirring his beef tea as if he hated it; "so called, I suppose, because she has finished so many good men and true. They tell me that she has completely ruined poor Charlie Farquhar. Is that so, Yorke?"
Yorke seemed very much ingrossed in his sole.