'Well,' the Duchess said with a pretty little blush, as she found all the eyes at the table fixed on her, including those that were covered by Professor Flick's moony spectacles, 'I have been reading all sorts of rumours about you, Mr. Ericson.'
Ericson quailed for a moment. 'She can't mean that,' he thought. 'She can't mean to bring up the marriage question here at Sir Rupert's own table, and in the ears of Sir Rupert's daughter! No,' he suddenly consoled himself, 'she is too kind and sweet—she would never do that'—and he did the Duchess only justice. She had no such thought in her mind.
'Are you really going to risk your life by trying to recover your Republic? Are you going to be so rash?'
Ericson was not embarrassed in the least.
'I am not ambitious to recover the Republic, Duchess,' he answered calmly—'if the Republic can get on without me. But if the Republic should be in danger—then, of course, I know where my place ought to be.'
'Just what I told you, Duchess,' Sir Rupert said, rather triumphant with himself.
Helena sent a devoted glance at her hero, and then let her eyes droop.
'Well, I must not ask any indiscreet questions,' the Duchess said; 'and besides, I know that if I did ask them you would not answer them. But are you prepared for events? Is that indiscreet!'
'Oh, no; not in the least. I am perfectly prepared.'
'I wish he would not talk out so openly as that,' Hamilton said to himself. 'How do we know who some of these people are?'