CHAPTER XII
IANA still bound by the Duchess’s command sat where my Lady Fanny left her, her mind full of what had passed. So that was the story. ’Twas a chivalrous one to take a girl’s fancy, it must be owned, and none the less if her fancy were already engaged by his chivalry to her. How he must suffer? Can such a woman hear of suffering without the desire to soothe it? She might well estimate the consolation of rank, wealth, health, youth at too low a worth in considering the trouble that obscured them all. But what indeed could she guess of a life that moved on an orbit so high above her own? This, she told herself and though her mind asserted it, her heart denied it, saying—“You comprehend him. And he you.”
And even as she thought thus, he stood beside her. The door had unclosed so softly that she did not hear aught, nor yet the light step on the velvet piled carpet. She turned suddenly and her heart’s sensibility rushed in a betraying wave of crimson to her pale face. But this he did not see.
She, woman-like, saw everything; his manly courageous bearing, his head held high, the splendour of dress, and the blue ribbon that crost his breast and exprest royal favour. It almost made her heart to die within her, so far apart it set him. What, save in the way of dishonour, could so great a prince have to do with a girl whose profession was the next thing to a woman of the town’s,—to act, to simper, to win, attract and simulate. Perhaps, she thought with bitterness, that was why nearly all of them went the way they did—the step between the two being so narrow.
He bowed as he might to her Grace.
“Do I see Mrs. Fenton better? And may I have the happiness to call her by her true name, and hope that Mrs. Beswick’s her charming self again? The Duchess has been in great concern and Mr. Gay well-nigh distracted. Not to speak of the whole town bereft of its idol.”
“My Lord Duke, I thank your Grace, I am quite recovered. Tomorrow I return to my part. I would that you or any one could tell me how to express to her Grace my grateful heart for her unending goodness.’
“She is very little known even in her own world,” says the Duke, leaning against the table, “for she is called cold, variable, proud, whereas I have never known her forget a friend or weary in a kindness. But I think in your case, Madam, it came very natural to her. This, however, is not what I would say. Mr. Gay hath brought a rumour from the playhouse that hath seriously disquieted him and all your friends. May I name it?”