"Ah! I suppose a duke is bound to be a bit exclusive," said the Senator, guardedly.
Beaumanoir, who a month before had regarded a ride in a Bowery street-car as an unattainable luxury, was betrayed into disclaiming any such snobbery.
"It isn't that——" he was beginning hotly, when he pulled up short and feebly subsided, without explaining why he should have desired a tête-à-tête journey.
With the starting of the train a sustained and confidential conversation became impracticable, nor did either of the fellow travelers seem inclined for one; but as they sped southward the Senator found plenty of food for reflection in his companion's behavior. To the experienced American eye the outline of a pistol was plainly apparent in the breast-pocket of the Duke, whose fingers never strayed far from that receptacle—an attitude which was always more distinctly marked during the infrequent stoppages. Except when it was distracted into a swift and nervous glance round by a movement of one of the other passengers, the Duke's gaze was always focused on the precious box which the Senator carried on his lap.
"Either he means to rob me himself, or he is scared lest someone else will," was the Senator's conclusion.
But the journey came to an end without either of these consummations being arrived at or even attempted, and the sight of the coroneted carriage and the ducal liveries at Tarrant Road station removed the Senator's last lingering doubt as to the Duke's identity. And, twenty minutes later, when, still hugging his despatch-box, he found his wife and daughter waiting to welcome him under the portico at Prior's Tarrant, he was ready to laugh at himself; and what the Senator was ready to do he usually did promptly—as now.
"Ah, Jem!" he cried, as General Sadgrove came forward to greet him. "You'll never believe what an ass I've been making of myself. Something in the British soil, I guess. It's only this minute that I've been able to clear my silly brain of a lurking suspicion that his Grace's kindness in coming to meet me covered a design on this little box. Took him for a sort of bunco-steerer."
The General passed over the remark as a careless jest without pursuing it, but shook hands with his old friend warmly. The veteran was looking careworn and aged, the Senator thought, and he wondered, too, at the queer searching glance which the General cast upon their mutual host as the latter limped from the brougham into the hall. The Duke was engaged in making light of the thanks and reproaches showered upon him for going to Liverpool, wherefrom the Senator guessed that that singular proceeding had been unknown beforehand to the house-party.
They all went into the tapestry-room, where Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, now happily recovered from her headache of three days ago, was chatting to Sybil Hanbury and Alec Forsyth. The necessary introductions were effected by Beaumanoir, whose spirits had wonderfully revived with his entry into the house—to such an extent, indeed, that Leonie put it down to a few hours in the company of her breezy father, little thinking that they had traveled two hundred miles together without exchanging half as many words. Yet if there was nothing forced about the Duke's sudden gaiety it certainly suggested unnatural excitement, and everyone present was impressed by his changed demeanor. Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was so affected by it that in narrowly observing her host she failed to notice that for some minutes after the introduction she herself was the object of observation, not to say a pretty sharp scrutiny, on the part of Senator Sherman.
"Say, your Grace," exclaimed the Senator, recovering from his abstraction and turning with some abruptness to the Duke, "I can't enjoy your hospitality with a whole heart till I've got this treasure under lock and key. Have you got any place where I can deposit the box with tolerable confidence of finding it when I want to take it to the Bank of England to-morrow? It's a just retribution, I guess, to have to make you its custodian after suspecting you of wanting to lift it."