The Duke stood undecided.
"I want something and yet I don't know exactly what I want. I need a moral tonic."
"You'll find the step ladder in the greenhouse," suggested Hank.
VIII
A few moments later the Duke from his accustomed elevation was conducting his erratic courtship.
It was not perhaps so much of a coincidence, that he seldom failed to discover Alicia in the mornings. She was an enthusiastic gardener. It was a hobby she had only recently taken up. It is said by the people of 70—their back windows overlooked the garden and they were notoriously uncharitable—that the gardening craze, which rightly should come with the spring, did not show in her until after the Duke's arrival; that until then her visits to the garden had been few and far between, and her interest of a perfunctory character.
This morning she was not as self-possessed as usual. Indeed she appeared to be a little nervous, but she made no pretence of avoiding him.
"How is the cat?" he asked.
It was his gambit.
"Poor Tibs is as serviceable as the weather," she smiled.