"Oh, Mr. Gray!" Ma Briskow quavered. "I could cry. An' after all you done for Buddy!"
The man shook his head vigorously, still with his face hidden. "It isn't Buddy. It's youth. Youth needs no fine adornment, no crown, no victory."
"What you goin' to do?" she asked him.
"Go on playing the duke, I suppose; rebuild the castle the best way I can. That's the hard part. If I could run away and forget, but—I can't. The old duke walled himself in. He must grin and strut and keep people from guessing that he's only a fraud until he can find a hole in the wall through which he can creep."
There was a long silence, then Ma inquired: "Would you like to tell me something about the little princess? Sometimes it helps, to talk."
"N-not yet."
"You're a duke, an' the best one that ever lived, Mr. Gray. You can't fool me; I've met too many of 'em. That lookin'-glass lied! Real dukes an' kings an' such people don't get old. It's only common folks. There's lots of magic, the world's full of it, an' your castle is goin' up again."
"After a fashion, perhaps"—Gray raised his head and smiled crookedly—"but it will never be a home, and that's what I wanted most of all. Do you think I'm very weak, very silly to come to you for a little mothering?"
"That's the kind of children mothers love best," the old woman said, then she drew him down to her and laid her cheek against his.
"There! I've made you cry," he exclaimed, reproachfully. "What a selfish beast I am! I'll go now."