“If I have hurt you in any way, I beg your pardon,” he said at once with a simple humility for which she honored him. “After all, if you decide not to marry my relation you give up a position which most people allow to be exceptional.”
“Yes—but if one has never aspired to it!”
He grew more puzzled.
“Can you afford to be so fastidious?—if you don’t think the question impertinent?”
“I have my living to earn,” she said very simply, “but of course I don’t want that to enter into the case.”
“Naturally. Of course. Let me put another question—if it is not impertinent?” The eyes of the Duke had now a grave amusement, but they had also something else. “I suppose you care a good deal for this young man?”
She simply stared at him in a kind of bewilderment.
Such an answer, unexpectedly swift, nobly complete, seemed to disconcert him a little.
“And—and without a word you give him up for the sake of other people?”
“Yes—if they insist upon it.”