The Duke placed a chair at the table beside him and waved me into it with a gracious smile. When I was seated, the Prince ceased scanning the cards on the table and looked at me as one would at a stranger. He was so like Solonika, and yet acted so unlike her, that I was uncomfortable.
"Raoul, permit me to present Dr. Wharton who took such good care of you when you were thrown," said the Duke in London English.
The young man and I nodded coldly. Above all things I desired to hear his voice.
"Do not permit me to interrupt the game," I said, lightly, but it was the Duke who replied.
"I am more than pleased to see you, Dr. Wharton, if only to extend my apologies for the affair of yesterday. Servants make sad mistakes sometimes."
Servants and Grand Dukes were somewhat alike in that respect, I thought, but I ventured no remark.
"When you were gone, I gave orders to Dajerak, the butler, never to permit General Palmora to enter this house again. He understood it to apply to the General's party. I did not know of his action until my daughter told me of it."
So Solonika had kept her promise to give the old gentleman a talking to. I was secretly amused at the hard work the Fox was making of it.
"I am pleased you overlooked my boorishness and returned," he concluded.
"It is nothing," I assured him.