"Well, now we will go in to breakfast. Did the fresh venison come in time, Cora?"
"I think so, sir."
"We cook it on the breakfast table, duke, each one for himself. Put a slice on a china plate over a chafing dish. The only way to eat a venison cutlet," said old Aaron Rockharrt, as he led the way into the breakfast room, where his eyes were immediately rejoiced by the sight of three chafing dishes filled with ignited charcoal ready for use, and a covered china dish, which he knew must contain the delicate venison cutlets.
When breakfast was over and they had all left the table, the Iron King, addressing his guest, said:
"Well, sir, I must be off to North End. I hope you will find some way of entertaining yourself within doors, for certainly this is not a day to tempt a man to seek recreation abroad. Nothing but business of importance could take me out in such weather."
"I regret that any cause should take you out, sir," replied the guest.
As soon as the noise of the wheels had died away, the duke, who had lingered in the hall to see his host depart, turned and entered the drawing room, where he found Cora as before, standing at a window looking out upon the dull November day.
"Will you permit me now to speak on the subject nearest my heart?" he pleaded, taking the hand which had dropped down by her side.
"I had rather that the subject had never been started, but under the circumstances, after what was said last night at dinner, I feel that the sooner we come to a perfect understanding the better it will be," said Cora, leading the way to a group of chairs and by a gesture inviting him to be seated. Then, to prevent him further committing himself and incurring a humiliating refusal, she herself took the initiative and said:
"If any other person than Mr. Rockharrt had made the public announcement that he did yesterday, I should have denounced the act as an unpardonable outrage; but of him I must say that he must have labored under some strange hallucination to have made such reckless assertions without one shadow of foundation. You yourself must have known that there was not one syllable of truth in his announcement."