The Duke smiled and shook his head.
“Well, sir, they only laugh at me,” said Joe. “But with you it would be different.” And then with admirable directness: “Why not see the girl and give her your views in the matter? She’s very sensible and she’s been well brought up.”
The Duke looked at his visitor steadily. If his Grace was in search of arrière pensée, he failed to find a sign of it in that transparently honest countenance.
“A bold suggestion,” he said, with a smile. “But I don’t know that I have any particular aptitude for handling headstrong young women.”
Joe promptly rebutted the ducal modesty. “Your words would carry weight, sir. She’s a girl who knows what’s what, I give you my word.”
The Duke could hardly keep from laughing outright at the sublime seriousness of this old bobby. But at the same time curiosity stirred him. What sort of a girl was this who owned such a genial grotesque of a father? It would impinge on the domain of comic opera to instal such a being as the future châtelaine of Bridport House. Still, as his visitor shrewdly said, society was in a state of flux.
“My own belief is,” said Joe, “that she’s the best girl in England, and if your Grace would set your point of view before her as you have set it before me, I’m thinking she’d do her best to help us.”
The Duke was impressed by such candor, such openness, such simplicity. After all, there was just a chance that things might take a more hopeful turn.
“She’s not one to go where she’s not wanted, sir,” said Joe. “And my belief is that if you have a little talk with her and let her know how you feel about it, you may be spared a deal o’ trouble.”
“You really think that?” said the Duke with a sigh of relief.