“Yes, she’s at the bottom of this business,” Nicholas had assured him, “though what further plot she has up her sleeve I don’t know. Why, if it hadn’t been—” And then, on the very verge of declaring that Antony himself had been the real foundation of the whole business, he had stopped short. Never in his life had Nicholas betrayed a lady’s secret or what might have been a lady’s secret. They were pretty much one and the same thing as far as his silence on the matter was concerned.
Well, the long and the short of the whole business was that the tenants of the Chorley Estate were about to receive fair play, and Nicholas was about to emerge from the chrysalis-like existence in which he had shrouded himself for fifteen years,—an advantage, certainly, in both instances. Only so far as Antony’s own self was concerned there didn’t seem the least atom of an advantage anywhere. Of course he was fully aware that he ought to see immense advantages. But he didn’t.
“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” says one of the poets. Was it Tennyson? But then that depends very largely on the manner of the losing. And in this case!
Antony crossed to the dresser and lighted the small lamp. He had just set it in the middle of the table when he heard the click of his garden gate, and a footstep on his little flagged path.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ON THE OLD FOUNDATION
Antony stood very still by the table. Once before he had heard that same footfall on his path,—a light resolute step. His face had gone quite white beneath its tan. There was a knock on the door. For one brief second he paused. Then he crossed the room, and opened the door wide.
“May I come in?” asked the Duchessa.