The Duke sat up and gazed at his mother in absolute amazement.
“For his sake,” he repeated in a hushed, almost frightened voice. “Do you want to marry him, mother?”
“It does not matter much what I want to do, my little son; it’s what I must not do that we have to do with. I shall not marry Mr. Methven. Some day when you are a man you will realize what I have given up for you—and for him!” And Mary fell a-weeping with her boy clasped in her arms.
The Duke felt her hot tears on his short-cropped hair, and he trembled; then, releasing himself from his mother’s arms, got off her knee and stood beside her, very pale and grave.
“Dear!” he said solemnly, “if you want to marry this—gentleman—if it will make you happier, you shall. Do you hear, darling? You shall.” And throwing himself into his mother’s arms, they cried together. When it came to the point, he found that he loved his mother better—than himself.
Presently Mary began to laugh. “Oh, Duke, Duke, how funny you are! You talk as if I were a little girl, as if—but it doesn’t matter—some day you will understand.... It’s not going to happen, Duke dear. It’s been a storm in a teacup. You must never listen to what ignorant people say.”
“May I contradict them, politely?” asked the Duke eagerly, with an immense relief shining in his eyes.
“Certainly, if anyone has the impertinence to speak of such a thing again. It is an insult to Mr. Methven and to me. Oh, Duke, there’s somebody coming upstairs. Quick, go and say I’ve got a headache and can’t see people.”
It flashed across the boy’s mind that he was not very presentable either. However, the staircase was dark, and he shut the sitting-room door behind him. A tall, black-coated figure was ascending the stairs.
“Mother can’t see anyone to-day, Mr. Methven; she’s got a headache.”