“It was my duty to maintain the honor of your Grace’s rank once I had consented to assume it,” said the painter with a bow.
“And you’re a dead shot, confound you, knockin’ the birds over right and left, and getting a par. in every sportin’ newspaper for a record bag of four hundred. You’re a polo player too—hit a ball up and down the field and through the goals at each end, and look as if you didn’t care whether the ladies applauded you or not, da—hang you! And you must own to bein’ a bit of a cricketer, and consent to play in the County Match on Thursday, and I wouldn’t like to bet against your chances of makin’ a big score—an all-round admirable what’s-a-name of a fellow like you!”
“Perhaps you’d better not,” the painter remarked calmly, knocking off the ash of his cigar. “But I should be glad to know the reason for this display of temper on your Grace’s part, all the same,” he added. “If I rode like a tailor and shot like a duffer, hit your ponies’ legs instead of the ball, and played cricket like a German governess at a girls’ boarding-school, I could understand——”
“Don’t you understand when I get back into my own skin again, I’ll have to live up to the reputation you’ve made me?” yelled Halcyon. “I could pass muster before because nobody looked for anything. But now....”
“And what of my reputation? I think I heard you telling Susanna——”
“Susanna!” echoed the Duke.
“She is Susanna to your Grace. Did I not hear you telling her that Chiaroscuro was an Italian painter of the Cinquecento—who, you said, was a Pope who patronized Art! You went on to say that Chiaroscuro lived on hard eggs, and designed carnival cars, and that Benvenuto Cellini won the Gold Cup at Ascot Race Meeting in ’91.”
“Look here, we won’t indulge in mutual recriminations. It’s beastly bad form!” said the Duke. “And though you can ride and all that, I never said I thought you could paint for nuts! In fact, between ourselves, I don’t half like havin’ these spooks on the ceilin’ set down to me.” He twisted his sandy little moustache, and fixed his eyeglass in his eye, and started. “Here’s Lady Lymston comin’ over the lawn with a whole pack of dogs, to ask me how I’ve got on since yesterday.”
“Take my blouse!” The painter denuded himself of the turpentiny garment, appearing in a well-cut tweed shooting-suit.
“Get into that rag! Not me, thanks! Hand over your brush, and give me a leg up on that scaffoldin’, like a good chap. I’d better be discovered at work, I suppose,” said his Grace of Halcyon, as he slowly mounted to the platform under the dome.