"You see that it is time I handed in my checks and allowed a better man to take the berth," said the duke cheerfully. "I'm very sorry, especially as you have taken so much trouble about the business. Let me see, where did I put them? I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten. Look in that bureau drawer, will you?"
Yorke got up and sauntered across the room. He looked very tall and thin in his dark mourning suit of black serge, and the duke noticed that he was paler than when he had seen him last, paler and more tired looking.
"Never mind," he said. "Let the lawyers make out fresh ones."
"Oh, I'll find 'em," said Yorke. "You have stuffed them in somewhere," and he opened drawer after drawer, in the free and easy manner in which a favorite son opens the drawers and cupboards of a father. "I'll back you for carefully mislaying things, especially papers, against any man in England—excepting myself."
"Grey always sees to them. He has spoilt me," remarked the duke apologetically.
"That's what I tell my man Fleming," said Yorke. "I should mislay my head if he didn't put it on straight every morning when he brushed my hair."
The duke laughed.
"They are a pattern pair," he said. "Don't trouble. Ring for Grey."
But Yorke in an absent mechanical fashion still sauntered round the room searching for the missing drafts, and presently he opened the drawer of the small cabinet which generally stood beside the duke's couch, but which this evening was immediately behind him.