He put out his hand for the lady to look at the stone and a knot of interested people drew near.
"You see," His Grace continued, "it is deeply graven with a lyre—and sometimes it seems to be dull and sometimes it flashes angrily."
"Are you not afraid to wear it?" some tactless person said.
The Duke replied gravely—"Why should I be? I have amply fulfilled all the conditions attached," and then the company, remembering the dark and ugly shadow of the mad Duchess, which had hung over his life for so many years, all seemed to talk at once and so the slightly awkward moment passed.
But Katherine thought deeply upon the subject as she sat in a wicker chair.
Yes, how ill his life had gone, and he was now fifty-three years old, and if it were true that he felt enough to have taken the trouble to score that sentence in her book, his present frame of mind could not be altogether happy either, and she sighed—why was happiness so often a forbidden fruit?
For a second before lunch she happened to be standing near him, and so some kind of words were necessary for politeness' sake.
"I hope you find your room comfortable, Miss Bush, and that you have all that you want."
She looked straight into his eyes, and there was a world of meaning in hers as she answered.