Two days and two hours had gone by, and Nicholas John Kilmuir was enjoying himself very much.
He was royally lodged, admirably served, superbly fed. What was still more to his taste, he went incognito. ‘Incognito’? No one had the remotest idea who he was—except that he was not the Duke of Culloden. To turn to smaller mercies, the weather was brilliant, and his time was his own. Moreoever, his conscience was clear—whenever Boschetto saw him, a pleased light crept into the dull, strained eyes. . . .
But that was not nearly all.
First, there was the spectacle of an impostor, whose arrival on Monday had been taken for that of His Grace, deliberately exploiting the error, accepting the fervent homage of a perfectly poisonous crowd and generally playing such ‘tricks before high Heaven as make the angels weep.’
Secondly, there was Susan Armitage Crail. . . .
“I should like,” said Nicholas John, “to ask you to dance. But a recent bereavement. . . .”
Miss Crail raised her sweet eyebrows.
“I’ve heard some excuses,” she bubbled, “but that’s the very best. It suggests shades of mourning of which the average relict never dreams.”
“He wasn’t a relation,” said Nicholas. “Only a—an intimate connection. And I’m not really mourning. We got on admirably for many years, and then at the last he got above himself. Indeed, he caused me much pain, before—before he . . . passed over.”
Miss Crail frowned.