After luncheon next day, when the rest of the company had departed, the Duke stayed on and accompanied his friend up to her own sitting-room where they could talk undisturbed.
They understood each other completely. They spoke for a long time of his travels and of his release at last from bondage and strain, and of how he was going to open Valfreyne once more and see the world of his fellows and take up the thread of his life.
"You must not keep a grain of mawkish sentiment, Mordryn," Her Ladyship said at last. "You must banish all remembrance of Laura and Adeliza and begin life afresh."
"At fifty-three?—It is a little late, I fear, for the game to have much zest."
"Tut! tut! You have never found the youngest and most beautiful woman recalcitrant, I'll wager. One had heard not so many years ago that a certain fine creature in Paris almost died of love for you!"
The Duke smiled, and when he did this it was an illumination, his face in repose was so stern.
"Not of love—of chagrin, because the ruby in the bangle she received was reported to her—by her masseuse—to be of less pure pigeon's blood than the duplicate—which I gave to the Spaniard. It is impossible to gauge the love of a mistress; it is equally kindled by rubies and the charms of a youthful Apollo."
"But you need not now confine your attentions to ces dames any longer, Mordryn; there are numbers of our world who would console you."
The Duke smiled again.