The Duchess assented that there was, with a movement of her lips; she put her hands over her face and so sat quietly for a few moments, and when she spoke again to her visitor, her words were irrelevant. When some few moments after she bade him good-by, she regretted his absence in London and begged him to come and see her as soon as he returned.
"Come," she said, "at least to see whether I am here or whether I have pitched my tent and gone away."
As Bulstrode stood in the doorway she asked him: "I understand there are a lot of people at the castle for Christmas, and among them will be Mrs. Falconer? Isn't it so? Is she really so very lovely?"
"It's a different type of loveliness from yours," Bulstrode returned. And the Duchess supposed: "A happier type?"
"Well, she's rather happy I think, take it all together," Jimmy said.
"Has she children?"
"None."
"Is she in love with her husband?"
And he was so long searching for a reply that the Duchess laughed quietly.
"Poor man," she said, "don't bother. But then since she's so happy, she must be in love with somebody else's husband."