“Oh, yes. He’s always with us, you see, living next door and that. He knows all the best places to fish, and he can build the most splendid castles with moats and secret passages and no end!”
The Duke turned his handsome head and smiled indulgently at Wiggins. “I bet he can’t shoot or play cricket much, or ride anything but a bike. You can’t remember father, Wiggins; he was a soldier, you know, and he used to say: ‘Ride straight, shoot straight, and speak the truth, and you’ll be a gentleman, sonny.’ An officer and a gentleman. I remember though it’s so long ago.”
The Duke’s eyes grew soft. He had loved that big handsome father of his with the uncomprehending, admiring love of a little-noticed child. The little daughter had been everything to Captain Burton, yet the Duke cherished his memory and rendered him a devotion greater than that he gave to the mother who understood him; a devotion which Mary took care should never be disturbed by any word of hers.
As Captain Burton lay dying he had lifted his weak arms and dragged her head down close to his face.
“Don’t tell the boys,” he whispered. “Let them think the best of me. Duke is a fine chap; he’ll make it up to you. I’ve been a beast and a fool, but I always loved you, Mary. Promise you won’t tell the boys.”
And Mary promised.
The Duke was a singularly handsome boy, with grave, beautiful manners. He never looked untidy or slovenly. Like his mother, he wore his clothes in such a way that he always seemed better and more suitably dressed than other people. He was rather a silent person, but gave one the impression that he was silent from choice, not because he had nothing to say.
He was very unmistakably a member of the “classes,” and though exceedingly urbane and gracious to what he was pleased to call mentally his “inferiors,” he was so because it would be ungentlemanly to be otherwise.
He would gravely assist a fishwife to raise her heavy creel to her shoulders, and lift his cap to her with a Hyde Park flourish when she started on her way. But he did so because he considered it the duty of a gentleman to assist women—not as Wiggins would have done, from a friendly interest in that particular fishwife. Slim, tall, and aristocratic, with oval face, straight nose, and big brown eyes, the Duke was a noticeable boy anywhere, and Mary was immensely proud of him.
He was good at most games, and quick to learn. He ferreted out a pony in the next village and rode about the country, to the admiration of the natives. He golfed on the gentlemen’s links and played a very good game for his age. He went fishing with the minister and Wiggins, and he bicycled with his mother.