Claudius laid his hand tenderly—tenderly, as giants only can be tender, on the thick black hair, as hardly daring, yet loving, to let it linger there.
"Will you promise that if you doubt me when I am gone, you will ask of the Duke the 'other reason' of my going?"
"I shall not doubt you," answered Margaret, looking proudly up.
"God bless you, my beloved!"—and so he went to sea again.
CHAPTER XVI.
When Mr. Barker, who had followed the party to Newport, called on the Countess the following morning, she was not visible, so he was fain to content himself with scribbling a very pressing invitation to drive in the afternoon, which he sent up with some flowers, not waiting for an answer. The fact was that Margaret had sent for the Duke at an early hour—for her—and was talking with him on matters of importance at the time Barker called. Otherwise she would very likely not have refused to see the latter.
"I want you to explain to me what they are trying to do to make Dr. Claudius give up his property," said Margaret, who looked pale and beautiful in a morning garment of nondescript shape and of white silken material. The Duke was sitting by the window, watching a couple of men preparing to get into a trim dogcart. To tell the truth, the dogcart and the horse were the objects of interest. His Grace was not aware that the young men were no less personages than young Mr. Hannibal Q. Sniggins and young Mr. Orlando Van Sueindell, both of New York, sons of the "great roads." Either of these young gentlemen could have bought out his Grace; either of them would have joyfully licked his boots; and either of them would have protested, within the sacred precincts of their gorgeous club in New York, that he was a conceited ass of an Englishman. But his Grace did not know this, or he would certainly have regarded them with more interest. He was profoundly indifferent to the character of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in the "book of snobs" or not. It is generally people who are themselves snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table, but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance. He came to America for business purposes, and he took Americans as he found them. He thought they were very good men of business, and when it came to associating with them on any other footing, he thought some of them were gentlemen and some were not—pretty much as it is everywhere else. So he watched the young men getting into their dogcart, and he thought the whole turn-out looked "very fit."
"Really," he began, in answer to the Countess's question, "—upon my word, I don't know much about it. At least, I suppose not."
"Oh, I thought you did," said Margaret, taking up a book and a paper-cutter. "I thought it must be something rather serious, or he would not have been obliged to go abroad to get papers about it."