"What proof?"
"I wish to meet the Duke—not as Lady Garribardine's secretary; that would prejudice him too much, naturally! I want to meet him in the evening at dinner as a guest. I want to talk to him and see for myself what he is like, and if he is as wonderful as he looks. Only you could arrange this. If you asked him to dinner and asked me and Miss Arabella or Miss Gwendoline d'Estaire it would be possible, would it not?"
He was staring at her now, overcome by her masterly frankness. No—she would never deceive him, he realised that and also that nothing of his will could ever impose upon hers. He knew he was impotent as a factor in the determining of her plans; all he could do to keep her favour was to fall in with them.
Her face, white as a lily in the growing dusk, was calm and cold and beautiful. He had never desired her more—but that fastidiousness in him, that power of detachment which could appreciate skill even when exercised against his own interests, asserted itself, and helped him. She was so wonderful a character, he must assist her even to his own pain.
"I suppose it would be possible—Beatrice goes down to Allerton to-morrow until after Easter. I expect I could arrange it for Friday night if I can only get the Duke—he will be awfully busy these days—but perhaps if I ask him at once I might catch him—" Then he thought a moment—"Yes—I've got a new case of miniatures I bought last week at an odd sale. I could beguile him on the pretext of giving me his opinion as to whether or no two of them are really Cosways. You see to what a state of abject slavery you have reduced me."
"No, I have not—you are being merely a loyal friend."
"To-night at dinner I will ask my aunt if you may dine—I have some boring country friends coming in any case that night and she will let me have you to help to entertain them, I expect. You are supposed to be extraordinarily talented as an entertainer of bores!"
He could not keep some of the bitterness he was feeling out of his voice. Katherine looked at him reproachfully.
"I thought you would perhaps have understood—and been kind."
He responded at once to her tone.