“Who is there?” said Linton, as a low, faint knock was heard at the door. It was repeated, and Linton approached and opened the door. A slight gesture of the hand was all that he could perceive in the half-light; but he understood it, and passed out, closing the door noiselessly behind him.
“Well?” said Rica, as he grasped the other's arm; “well?”
“Well?” echoed Linton, peevishly. “She is in her most insolent of moods, and affects to think that all the splendor I have offered her is but the twin of the mock magnificence of the stage. She is a fool, but she'll think better of it, or she must be taught to do so.”
Rica sighed heavily, but made no answer; at last he said,—
“It is over with the Duke, and he bears it well.”
“Good blood always does,” said Linton. “Your men of birth have a lively sense of how little they have done for their estates, and therefore part with them with a proportionate degree of indifference. Where is he?”
“Writing letters in the boudoir off the drawing-room. You must see him, and ask when the necessary papers can be signed and exchanged.”
Linton walked on, and passing through the play-room, around which in every attitude of slumber the gamblers lay, entered the boudoir, before a table in which the Duke de Marsac was busy writing.
“Fortune has still been obdurate, my Lord Duke, I hear,” said he, entering softly.
The Duke looked up, and his pale features were totally devoid of all emotion as he said,—