"I am afraid that is beyond me, Lady Constance," he returned, smiling, and feeling at ease again.
Just as he spoke Lord Hayle and the bishop entered, and they all went down to dinner.
They sat at a small oval table, and every one was in excellent spirits. The duke's troubles seemed to have left him. He felt exhilarated and stimulated, and a half-formed purpose in his mind grew clearer and clearer as the meal went on.
He would ask the radiant girl opposite him to be his wife.
He would ask her that very night if an opportunity presented itself. She was utterly, overwhelmingly charming. There was nobody like her in society. She was as unique among the high-born girls of the day as Ellen Terry was in the height of her charm and beauty upon the stage, when Charles Reade wrote the famous passage about her.
Yes, nothing could be better. She was like champagne to him—she was the most beautiful thing in the world—at the moment she was the most desirable. The ready influence of her talk and laughter stole into his brain. He was captured and enthralled. He thought that this at last was Love.
For he did not know, being a young man with great possessions, but few experiences, that Love does not come upon the wings of light and laughter, but wears a sable mantle, shot through with fires from heaven. He had never loved, and so he did not know that, when the divine blessing of love is vouchsafed, there is a catch in the throat and the tears start into the eyes.
He talked well and brilliantly, relating his experiences of that afternoon.
"So you see," he said, "I went into my great lonely house by a side door—the butler's door, I believe it is called as a matter of fact, and I found the library very warm and comfortable, and with the man I had appointed to be librarian gone. He apparently had just finished his day's work of cataloguing. He is a scholar of my own college and a very decent chap I have found him. He wanted some paid work during the vacations to help him on towards his career at the bar—he is going to be called as soon as he possibly can. I understand that he is certain for a double first. Already he has got his first in mods. and he will get a first in history, too."
"I know the man," Lord Hayle said. "Poor chap! He does not look too well provided with this world's goods."