"I dare not; but I enjoy seeing you eat it. I've often had thoughts of having a man with a good appetite that I might have the pleasure of seeing him eat a square meal while I sit cursing my beef tea and gruel. The night I went to the Diadem I took Eleanor——."
Yorke Auchester suspended his fork half way to his mouth, and looked at his cousin.
"Oh," he said, and whatever the "Oh" might have been intended to mean it was singularly dull and inexpressive.
"Yes, it was her birthday, and she asked me to take her. That was kind of her, wasn't it?"
"Was it?" said Yorke, dryly.
"Well, I think so. You mean that most young girls would like to go to the theater with the Duke of Rothbury, or for the matter of that any other duke—unmarried; but that's because they would go with the hope of repeating the visit some day as his duchess. But Eleanor knows that I should not marry her; we have come to a plain understanding on the subject."
"I see," said Yorke Auchester. "I suppose this is Dartmoor mutton? It's very good."
"I dare say," assented the duke, with a smile. "But to return to my mutton, which is Eleanor. It was her birthday, and I took her to the theater and gave her a small present; the Rothbury pearls."
"Some persons would call an elephant small," remarked Yorke, laconically.
"Did—did you give her anything, Yorke?" asked the duke, almost shyly, ignoring the comments.