"With the duchess—why not?"
"For many reasons. She did not like the color of my hair, because it is brighter than Lady Linleigh's. She did not like my name; she said it had the flavor of common poetry about it."
"Your name? If I am not presumptuous, what is it?"
"Doris," she replied, and she raised her eyes to his with a look of most angelic innocence. He was bewildered.
"Doris," he repeated. "I knew a Doris once—the one so like you."
"Doris—how strange." Again the low, sweet laugh that maddened him. "I assure you," she continued, "that I am like the duchess—I dislike the name exceedingly."
He was looking at her in a maze of perplexity. She was so like; it must be his Dora. The name, too; it could not be a coincidence. Yet, if she were the girl he had betrayed, it was not natural that she could refrain from showing some little emotion, some fear, some surprise. She did not appear to notice that there was anything strange in his silence or his fixed regard.
"I have a theory of my own about names," she continued, "and I think it the most cruel thing in the world to give a child either an ungainly or an unusual one. If I had had a sensible name, I should not have been full of caprice, as I am now."
He laughed, still wondering. Could it be his Dora, the girl he had learned to love with such a fierce, mad love—the girl to recover whom he would have cheerfully laid down his wealth? He would not have believed it possible, if any other man had told him such a story; he would have said it could not be, that it must be clear at once whether she were the girl or not; yet he was puzzled. If a kingdom had been offered to him at that moment to say whether this was the girl he had loved or not, he could not have told. Still, he would try her, and try her until some incautious word, some half-uttered exclamation, some sudden look of fear would betray her. If none of these things happened, he would take further steps—go down to Brackenside, where he had first met her, and see what he could find out there.
Then, as he listened to her, his faith was shaken again. Surely, if she dreaded recognition, she would be less natural, she would seek in some measure to disguise her voice, her laugh; but no one could be more frank or natural. Then a new idea came to him. If she were really Dora, as sooner or later he must discover, then he would compel her to marry him by threats; if she were not, he would win her love and marry her.