"That you cease to worry your head over either of them," said Worth. "You will do no good by it, and if you begin to lose your prettiness you will find you have me to reckon with."
She smiled, but shook her head. "I cannot help but worry over them. If only Lady Barbara had had enough good feeling to go away from here! It must be painful beyond words for Charles to find himself continually in her company. My only dependence is on his being at last disgusted by her conduct."
"We will hope for that agreeable end. Meanwhile. Charles can at least consider himself fortunate in being kept busy by the Duke."
"I suppose so. What does he think of it? Has he made any comment?"
"None to me."
"I daresay he might not care. I do not consider him a man of much sensibility. He is very amiable and unaffected, but there is a coldness, a lack of feeling for others, which, I confess, repels me at times."
"He's a hard man, no doubt, but it is just possible. my dear, that he has matters of more moment to occupy him than the love affairs of his staff," said Worth, somewhat ironically.
The Duke, however, did comment on the broken engagement, though not perhaps in a manner which, would have raised Judith's opinion of his character, had she been able to hear him. "By the by, Fitzroy," he said, looking up from the latest missive from General Decken on the vexed question of the Hanoverian subsidy, "what's this I hear about Audley?"
"The engagement is at an end, sir, that's all I've been told."
"By God, I'm very glad to hear it!" said his lordship, dipping his pen in the standish. "She was doing him no good, and I'm damned if I'll have my officers ruined for their duties by her tricks!"