Winton rose up in the excitement of the moment and stood before her like a man petrified. “Don’t do it! Do you mean—— Pardon me if I am slow of understanding.”
“I mean, seeing it had unfortunately come about that, without being able to help it, you had fallen in love with Jane——”
“Unfortunately!”
“You do nothing but repeat my words,” the Duchess cried in a plaintive tone. “It is unfortunately—but hear me out first. If you had spoken to me I should have said, Try and get over it, Mr Winton; don’t disturb her, poor girl, by telling her. Try if a little trip to America, or tiger-shooting, or to be a ‘Times’ correspondent, or some other of those exciting things which you young men do nowadays, will not cure you. I should have said, You have not known her very long, it cannot have gone very deep. I tell you this to show you what my advice would have been had you asked me before speaking to Jane.”
“But it is of no use speculating upon what we should have done in an imaginary case,” said Winton. He had awoke from his first bewilderment, and began to understand vaguely that everything was not going to be easy for him as he had once thought. “You see I have spoken to her,” he said. “You frighten me horribly; but then it is of no use considering what you would have done in a totally different case.”
The Duchess sighed and shook her head. “That is what I should have thought it my duty to say, in view of all the pain and confusion that are sure to follow. Do you know, Mr Winton, that her father will never listen to you—never!” she said, with a sudden change of tone.
Winton dropped upon his chair again and stared at her with an anxious countenance. “I knew—I was told—that the Duke would not be easy to please. And quite right! I agree with his Grace. I am not half good enough for her; but then,” he added after a pause, “nobody is. If there is one man in the world as worthy as she is, neither the Duke nor any one knows where to find him; and then,” he continued, in tones more insinuating still, “it would not matter now. If that hero were found to-morrow, she would not have him, for—she has chosen me! I allow that it is the most wonderful thing in the world!” said the lover, in a rapture which became him; “but you will find it is true. She has chosen me!”
“It may be very true,” said the Duchess, shaking her head more and more, “but the Duke will not pay much attention to that. I am afraid it is not moral excellence he is thinking of. It would be hard, I allow, to find anybody as good as Jane. Probably if we did, he would turn out to be some poor old missionary or quite impossible person. I am afraid that is not at all what her father is thinking of.”
“Then tell me what it is. I am not Prince Charming—but the Wintons have been settled at Winton since the Conquest, and I am very well off. The settlements should be—whatever you wish.”
“Don’t promise too much,” said the Duchess, with a smile, “for no doubt you have got a family lawyer who will be of a very different opinion; indeed I hope you have, if that is your way of doing business. But, alas! the Duke will not be satisfied, I fear, even with that.”