Jimmy watched his face with a keen pity, for there had not been one ray of light in it as he planned for his celebration.
"But you arrange to come back for Christmas Eve. There must be some one in charge—I mean to say, some one so that if the whole thing is too much for me, why I'll bolt and you'll have to stand by."
He was, as he spoke, writing the names on a sheet of paper. Bulstrode felt the plan to be rather triste and lifeless, and he knew that he could not and would not keep the Duchess' secret much longer, let its revelation cost him what it would.
"Westboro'," he said, "I shall have to be getting off to-morrow. You know I would stand by you if I could possibly see my way clear."
"I know perfectly well," the Duke acknowledged, "what a rotten bore I've been, and how sick of me you must be." He wrote on: "I shall ask Mrs. Falconer (her husband is in the States); she is quite alone in town at Lady Sorgham's." As he quoted this last name the Duke folded his list up. He nodded affectionately at Jimmy. "You'll arrange perhaps to come down with Mrs. Falconer on the Friday train?"
And Bulstrode capitulating weakly, murmured, "Oh, we'll fetch the toys and things for the tree," he offered.
"Ripping!" his Grace nodded.
Jimmy, on his way at last to London, stopped once more at The Dials, and was hurrying across the forest when the Duchess herself appeared to him at the big dial. She wore her furs, muff, and big enveloping stole, her hat with fur on it, and a veil. She was not in house or garden trim. The urban air of her toilet was a surprise to Bulstrode, and he took in her readiness for something he had not expected, something great, something decisive.
"It's good of you to come when you must be full of delightful ways of passing your time, Mr. Bulstrode," she said, "and I wanted so much to see you again."
"Again?"