"Not while Uncle Eustace and his two boys come before me, and as they are all as healthy as plowboys, and likely to live to the eighties, every one of 'em, there doesn't seem much chance, Dolph!"
"No," said the duke, in a low voice. "It's rather hard on the British Peerage that the present Duke of Rothbury should be a hunchback and a cripple, and that the next should be a miser, while the young man who would adorn the title——."
"Should be a penniless young scamp," put in Yorke, lightly.
The duke colored.
"Well, barring the scamp, that was in my thoughts. Do you ever think of the future, Yorke?"
"Never, if I can help it," responded the young fellow, cutting himself a piece of stilton.
The duke smiled, but rather gravely.
"I do, and when I think of it, I wish that I could secure it for you. But you know that I can't, Yorke. Every penny, or nearly every penny, goes to Lord Eustace."
"Don't let it trouble you, Dolph," said Yorke Auchester. "Of course the money must go to keep up the title. Every fellow understands that. Heaven knows I've had enough as it is."
"And so you didn't give Eleanor a birthday present," said the duke, slowly. "That was—to put it delicately, Yorke—thoughtless of you. Will you give me that box, the leather one? Thanks."