“Immensely. Sometimes a trifle disastrously. Find me a more absolutely interesting object in the universe than a woman—any woman—and I will devote the remainder of my declining years to the study of it,” answered his grace.
He said it with a decision which made T. Tembarom turn to look at him, and after his look decide to proceed.
“Have you ever known a bit of a slim thing”—he made an odd embracing gesture with his arm—“the size that you could pick up with one hand and set on your knee as if she was a child”—the duke remained still, knowing this was only the beginning and pricking up his ears as he took a rapid kaleidoscopic view of all the “Ladies” in the neighborhood, and as hastily waved them aside—“a bit of a thing that some way seems to mean it all to you—and moves the world?” The conclusion was one which brought the incongruous touch of maturity into his face.
“Not one of the `Ladies,”' the duke was mentally summing the matter up. “Certainly not Lady Joan, after all. Not, I think, even the young person in the department store.”
He leaned back in his corner the better to inspect his companion directly.
“You have, I see,” he replied quietly. “Once I myself did.” (He had cried out, “Ah! Heloise!” though he had laughed at himself when he seemed facing his ridiculous tragedy.)
“Yes,” confessed T. Tembarom. “I met her at the boarding-house where I lived. Her father was a Lancashire man and an inventor. I guess you've heard of him; his name is Joseph Hutchinson.”
The whole country had heard of him; more countries, indeed, than one had heard. He was the man who was going to make his fortune in America because T. Tembarom had stood by him in his extremity. He would make a fortune in America and another in England and possibly several others on the Continent. He had learned to read in the village school, and the girl was his daughter.
“Yes,” replied the duke.
“I don't know whether the one you knew had that quiet little way of seeing right straight into a thing, and making you see it, too,” said Tembarom.