“When is it so?” she asked, avoiding his question— “Do I not see your Grace that hath youth, health, riches, splendour—everything, sad enough sometimes? Who then shall be happy?”
“Youth, health, riches, splendour!” he repeated— “Yes, but set against them, Mrs. Fenton,—loneliness, sorrow, shame, hatred.— Do that sum in subtraction and what is left? Nothing.”
“Yet your Grace is gay often?”
“How could a man live otherwise? But my life is desolation. O fool that I am to talk thus and to a young and beautiful and happy woman. What should you know, child, of care—you that have life in radiant sunshine before you? I ask your pardon for being so selfish as to remind you that there are clouds even in a summer sky.”
“I did not need reminding. My life is a struggle too, your Grace.”
Her eyes dropt, and her cheek flushed.
“I know your reason,” he said, looking earnestly at her. “ ’Tis a hard case that men do not nor cannot distinguish a legitimate prey from one that ’tis cruelty to attempt. There have been moments when I despised my whole sex—not sparing myself—for our blindness and selfishness in this respect.”
“Not you—not yourself,” she cried eagerly. “I have never heard a word from your Grace nor seen a look that did not honour the woman you spoke with as well as yourself. I have learnt from you what a gentleman may be, whereas before I had only dreamt it. And I have thanked God for it for I am very sore beset.”
She spoke with such warmth of gratitude that the water stood in her eyes, and the Duke looked at her astonished and humbled.
“Madam, I take shame to think how little I have deserved your esteem and it gives me a pang to know you grateful for the mere absence of brutality. You must indeed have suffered if such is the case. You have no brother, no father to protect you, and no man knows better than I that your profession exposes you to insult. I beseech you to honour me by remembering that if any man insults you my sword is at your service. ’Tis no empty proffer. I mean it.”