The duke was leaning back luxuriously in his chair and gazing at him as he might have gazed at the work of an old master of which each line and shade was of absorbing interest.
“I can see him,” he said. “I can see him.”
“He found out I knew nothing,” Tembarom continued. “And what was to hinder him trying to teach me something, by gee! Nothing on top of the green earth. I was there, waiting with my mouth open, it seemed like.”
“And he has tried—in his best manner?” said his grace.
“What he hasn't tried wouldn't be worthy trying,” Tembarom answered cheerfully. “Sometimes it seems like a shame to waste it. I've got so I know how to start him when he doesn't know I'm doing it. I tell you, he's fine. Gentlemanly—that's his way, you know. High-toned friend that just happens to know of a good thing and thinks enough of you in a sort of reserved way to feel like it's a pity not to give you a chance to come in on the ground floor, if you've got the sense to see the favor he's friendly enough to do you. It's such a favor that it'd just disgust a man if you could possibly turn it down. But of course you're to take it or leave it. It's not to his interest to push it. Lord, no! Whatever you did his way is that he'd not condescend to say a darned word. High-toned silence, that's all.”
The Duke of Stone was chuckling very softly. His chuckles rather broke his words when he spoke.
“By—by—Jove!” he said. “You—you do see it, don't you? You do see it.”
Tembarom nursed his knee comfortably.
“Why,” he said, “it's what keeps me up. You know a lot more about me than any one else does, but there's a whole raft of things I think about that I couldn't hang round any man's neck. If I tried to hang them round yours, you'd know that I would be having a hell of a time here, if I'd let myself think too much. If I didn't see it, as you call it, if I didn't see so many things, I might begin to get sorry for myself.” There was a pause of a second. “Gee!” he said, “Gee! this not hearing a thing about Ann!—”
“Good Lord! my dear fellow,” the duke said hastily, “I know. I know.”