"I must come, dear friend," he had said to Lady Garribardine, "to be sure that you have everything you can possibly want."
The Venetian suite was on a par in splendour with the rest of the house. It was on the same floor as His Grace's own sitting-room which they had left, and it was reached by a passage place which led to the same terrace, which the windows looked upon; this was marble paved, with a splendid balustrade. The ante-chamber had been arranged with a writing table near the great window, and every convenience for Miss Bush to do any writing her mistress might require. For the rest, the Venetian suite was always reserved for the most honoured guest. Here were a sitting-room, a great bedroom and dressing-room for Her Ladyship—all with the same lofty ceilings and fine windows as the room they had left, and behind it came that charming green damask-hung chamber designed for Miss Bush.
"Here in this apartment you will find yourselves completely quiet and shut off from the world," the Duke said. "Once you have passed the great door, as you know, Seraphim, your suite makes the end of this wing, and only I can approach you from my sitting-room!"
Lady Garribardine, who knew every nook in the house, smiled as she expressed herself as content, and he left them alone.
Katherine examined her room; it would have struck her as very large if it had been in any other house. It looked on to an inner courtyard with a fountain playing, and statuary and hundred-year-old lilac bushes in huge tubs. The room was hung with pale green silk, and had beautiful painted Italian, eighteenth century furniture, and on the dressing-table were bowls of lilies of the valley.
She thrilled a little; was this accidental or deliberate?
She was very well acquainted with the workings of a great house, and the duties of the housekeeper and groom of the chambers. She saw from a technical point of view that these retainers of Valfreyne must be of a very high order of merit because of the result of their work; but even their intelligence could hardly have selected the volumes of her favourite authors, which she had discussed with the Duke, and which were placed in bookstands, with the "Letters of Abelard and Héloise" and a beautiful edition of "Eothen" out on the top!
These silent testimonies of someone's personal thought gave her unbounded pleasure; they restored her submerged self-confidence, and made her eyes glow. It was divine to feel that he cared enough to have troubled to do this. The subtle flattery was exquisite.
A burning wave of colour overspread Katherine's face, and her nostrils quivered. If the Duke could have seen her—he would have known that that quality he appreciated—the quality of real, natural passion—was abundantly present in her nature. Strong passion controlled by an iron will—a mixture which he thought quite ideal in the woman whom a man would choose to be the companion of his life.
It was this particular suggestion about Katherine which had alike intoxicated the imaginations of these three far different men, Lord Algy, Gerard Strobridge and the Duke. The human, adorable warmth of emotion of which her white, smooth-skinned face and red, full mouth looked capable.