He himself stayed behind with Lady Grenellen, he said, to take her for a walk in the woods.
After lunch every one seemed to play bridge but Lady Tilchester and I and her politician and the weak-eyed Duke. We climbed the hill to the ruins of the old castle and there sat until tea-time.
"Isn't it a bore for me I shall have to marry an heiress?" the Duke said, pathetically. "Marriage is the most tiresome ennui at any time, but to be forced through sheer beggary to take some ugly woman you don't like and don't want is cruel hard luck, is it not?"
"Yes," I said, feelingly.
He was melted by the sympathy in my voice.
"You are a delicious woman; you seem to understand one directly. People have got into the way of thinking it is no hardship to have to do these things for the sake of one's title, but I can see you are sympathetic."
"Yes, indeed!" I said.
"Cordelia Grenellen is arranging it for me. I have not seen her yet—I mean the heiress."
"If I were a man I think I should keep my freedom and—and—work," I faltered.
He looked at me, perfectly astonished.