The duke was crouching in a chair and looked fearfully pale and ill, and had an inscrutable expression on his face. Fancy a man so old-looking, and crippled, being even Robert's half-brother.
I came forward—he rose with difficulty, and this is the conversation we had.
"Please don't get up," I said. "If I may sit down opposite you."
"Excuse my want of politeness," he said, pointing to a chair; "but my back is causing me great pain to-day."
He looked such a poor, miserable, soured, unhappy creature, I could not help being touched.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" I said. "If I had known you were ill I would not have troubled you now."
"Justice had better not wait," he replied, with a whimsical, cynical, sour smile. "State your case."
Then he suddenly turned on an electric lamp near me, which made a blaze of light in my face. I did not jump, I am glad to say; I have pretty good nerves.
"My case is this: To begin with, I love your brother better than anything else in the world."
"Possibly—a number of women have done so," he interrupted. "Well?"