It was about one o'clock in the afternoon.
The duke sat in his library in Cheyne Walk. It was a large and comfortable room, surrounded by books, with a picture here and there which the discerning eye would have immediately seen to be of unusual excellence, and, indeed, surprising in such a house as this. A barrister earning his two thousand a year, a successful doctor not quite in the first rank, a county court Judge or a Clerk in the Houses of Parliament would have had just such a room—save only for the three pictures.
The duke had changed considerably in appearance during the past five years.
The boyishness had departed. The serenity and impassivity of a great prince who had never known anything but a smooth seat high upon Olympus had gone also.
The face, now strong with a new kind of strength, showed the marks and gashes of Experience. It was the mask of a man who had done, suffered, and learned, but it was, nevertheless, not a very happy face.
There was, certainly, nothing of discontent in it. But there was a persistent shadow of thought—a brooding.
Much water had flowed under the bridge since the night at the theatre when he had made a public renunciation of almost everything that was his.
Life had not been placid, and for many reasons. There had been the long and terribly difficult breaking away from his own class and order, for he had not been allowed to go into "outer darkness" without a protracted struggle.
All the forces of the world had arrayed themselves against him. The wisest, the most celebrated, the highest placed, had combined together in that they might prevent this dreadful thing.
He was not as other men.