As he spoke Edward leant over with a look of concern, and touched the other on the knee, for the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer was sitting silent, and had buried his head in his hands. "What's all this?" he asked, and noted the anguish that lived in the duke's eyes as he raised his head to answer him.
"It means the loss of everything to me—everything, Mr. Sydney. Throne, position—and a love that is more than my life to me."
"Now, look here, duke: of course the throne is Galva's, there's no getting away from that, but if she loves you and you love her—well—it seems to me that things are fitting in rather neatly."
"Oh, you don't understand. What will the people here say? How will they speak of a man who, having lost a throne, climbs back to it on the shoulders of a woman? The honour of our family is not to be judged by the standard of the devil who is dying back there in Corbo."
The duke had risen as he spoke, but Edward pressed him gently back into his chair.
"I am a plain man, duke, and have lived a plain life—how plain it has been you would never guess. One of these days I will tell you all about the hand I have played in this affair, but not now.
"But in my plain life I have learnt two or three plain facts, and one is that we must take what the good gods give us; they don't, as a rule, hold out their gifts twice. As for this fetish you call honour, what honour is there in spoiling your own life and Galva's too? You say the people will think badly of you. Let them. They will be in the minority, a few kill-joys—remember that all the world loves a lover.
"Yours is a love story that will ring through Europe. Your engagement before either of you knew the high destiny of the other has the true spice of romance, the heart-throb which always fetches the public favour. The Press will fight your battle."
Edward sat down feeling rather surprised at his own eloquence, and drank off a goblet of Chianti. Then he lit a cigar and was silent.
A moment, and the duke turned to him with a sad little smile.