"No." I felt the colour leap into my cheeks like an angry flame. I was ashamed of myself for blushing.
The Duchess looked at me attentively, and I saw a pleased expression in her eyes. That look made me still more uncomfortable. She bent towards me, took my hand, and pressed it.
"You like Jim, do you not?" she said.
"Yes," I answered very slowly. "I do not know Mr. Randolph well, but what little I have seen of him I like. He is courteous, and he thinks of others; he is very unselfish; he has much sympathy and tact, too. I think he is very fond of mother."
The Duchess gave the queerest, most inexplicable of smiles.
"He is a dear fellow," she said. "Westenra, when you come back to us we will all rejoice."
"I do not understand you," I answered coldly. "It is impossible for me ever to come back to you. I have stepped down."
"When you come back we will rejoice," she repeated.
"But I am not coming back. I do not even know that I want to. If you had come to see mother sometimes—mother, who is just as much a lady as she ever was, who is sweeter and more beautiful than she ever was—you might have done us a great service, and I could have loved you, oh! so dearly; but you have forsaken us, because we are no longer in your set. Duchess, I must speak the truth. I hate sets; I hate distinctions of rank. You used to love us; I did think your love was genuine. We lived in a nice house in Mayfair, and you were our great and kind friend. Now you do not love us, because—because we are poor."
"You are mistaken, Westenra. I love you still, and I have never forgotten you. I will not come in now, but I will come and see your mother to-morrow."