“No, no!” Her laughter checked him like a hand. “What does it matter at all, since I’m no Saint? I’ll not need patience; all I’ll need is grace to keep a straight face and a civil tongue. Let them be, darlin’; ’tis a thousand pities my Aunt Dasheen died without laying eyes on them. They’re like her own sisters. Did no one ever give that fine Roddy of yours a good cuff?”
“I’ll give him two and a strapping,” said the duke. “The glowering young cub!”
“You’d never steal such pleasure for yourself,” she implored. “In no time at all they’ll be gone to their schools and colleges, and I’ll set what mind I have to growing tall enough to reach their ears if I stand on my toes. Would you like me better if I reached up higher?”
Their world was in that room—its four blue walls held all their heaven and earth. From its windows they saw dawns break and nights fall; when they crossed its threshold they stepped under a spell that held them safe from all disaster. No one had ever loved any one as he loved his little golden duchess; sometimes he smiled gravely and indulgently when he thought of the poor travesties that passed in the world for adoration. Dante and the girl that crossed the bridge in her wine-coloured gown—tragic and absurd to call that love, which was not strong enough to win a kiss! Paolo and Francesca stealing hot glances over a closed book in a garden—blasphemous to think that love could come clothed in secrecy and guilt. And those frantic, desperate children of the Capulets and Montagues—was love, then, something shot with blood and tears? No, no, love was shot with beauty and with mirth—love was his Biddy, dancing through darkness to his arms.
When some unshirkable duty called him from her to the London that they had forgotten he would possess his soul with what patience he might until the doors of Gray Courts opened once more, and before the doors had swung to behind his voice would ring out—
“Where is Her Grace?”
They never had need to tell him; before the words were off his lips he would hear her light feet, running to reach him across the long halls, the dark stairs.
When winter hung the world in silver frost they piled the fire higher and drew the curtains closer and sat wrapped warm in dreaming happiness while the winds roared and lashed over the world.
“Shall I take you to London?” he asked her.
“London?” she cried in wonder. “Oh, whatever for?”