"Billy, and Roly, and mamma," he mimics me, laughing, though he bites his lips, "the old story."
"Wrong: I was going to say mother only. Somehow, Billy and Roly of late do not seem so dear as you." I stroke his face patronizingly.
"Only mother!" he says, with a gay laugh (how many weeks have passed since last I heard that laugh!) "why, that is much better. Billy always appeared the most formidable rival. I am progressing in your good books. In time I may even be able to vanquish mother."
"I am so glad I made that onslaught on your door a little while ago," declare I, merrily, "and I think you were very undecided about letting me in. How good it is to be quite friends again! and we have not been that for a long time. Oh, is not jealousy a horrible pain?"
"'And to be wroth with those we love Doth work like madness on the brain,'"
quotes 'Duke softly.
"It all began by Mark Gore telling me you were once engaged to Blanche Going."
"What a lie!" cries 'Duke, so eagerly that I cannot choose but believe him. "How often am I to tell you I never loved any one but you?"
"That is another thing. Men always imagine when they form a new attachment that the old ones contained no real love. What I should like to know is, how many you asked to marry you." My words are uttered jestingly, yet his face changes, very slightly, ever so little, yet it certainly changes. Only a little pallor, a little faint contraction nothing more. It is gone almost as soon as it is there.
"I never asked Blanche, at all events," he laughs, lightly. And not until many days have come and gone, do I remember his singular hesitation.