"It is; and I shall write and tell Caroline so," said Lord Ashcroft with the same firmness.
"I never knew such an obstinate—wrong-headed—" the duke broke out. He broke off short, paused, began to laugh, and laughed heartily. Then he said: "Oh, well; have it your own way. Write and tell her so."
"I shall," said Lord Ashcroft in the tone of one bent on performing a sacred duty. "I don't see anything to laugh at."
The duke again remained silent; but twice he laughed sudden, short laughs. Lord Ashcroft looked at him suspiciously.
"I don't know quite what's happening to you, Osterley," he said presently in a tone hardly meant to be pleasant. "You're changing."
"Yes: getting brighter," said the duke easily.
"It may be that and again it may not," said Lord Ashcroft coldly; and he tugged at his beard.
After that conversation seemed hard to make; and soon the duke said that he must be going. Lady Ashcroft kept him waiting nearly twenty minutes before she brought Pollyooly down from the nurseries. Then she said that Pollyooly must come to spend the whole day with her children; and Pollyooly said that she would like to come very much. The duke looked a little doubtful: he was not sure that Pollyooly could stand the test of hours of intimacy.
On the way home he talked for a while cheerfully; and since there was no intellectual gulf between them, they could talk to one another with perfect ease and understanding. Then he fell into a sudden panic.
"By Jove!" he cried, clutching at his moustache and missing it. "I'd forgotten all about it! My sister—Lady Salkeld's coming home to-morrow!"