He was a very magnetic person—by far the most magnetic I ever had encountered. As one became more and more conscious of his supremely attractive personality—as one could not help but do—there was something fascinating even about his topsy-turvy way of putting things. If I had surrendered myself to the magic of his influence, what would have happened? What would have been the issue of the night’s adventures? If I had! But I did not. I gave myself, as it were, a mental pinch, and I put my head out of the window, and I called to the driver.
CHAPTER XXII.
I BEHAVE LIKE A GOOSE
“Coachman!” I cried. The driver reined in his horse. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home, my lady.”
“Home? To whose home? To my home?”
“To His Grace’s, my lady—Chelmsford House.”
He called me “my lady,” and spoke of “His Grace,” and of Chelmsford House. Then the brown man must be the Duke of Chelmsford? No woman can suddenly awake to the fact that she has been in the society of a real live duke—and such a duke—without becoming conscious of a singular something. I withdrew my head from the window with a sort of spasmodic rush.
“Are you the Duke of Chelmsford?”
“I am; and hope that you will shortly be the Duchess.”
The Duchess! the Duchess of Chelmsford! the consort of the richest duke in the world, and, as my own eyes told me—the very handsomest; the queen of English society—palaces and lands just everywhere—the world at my feet, ready, willing, eager to do me homage—me! Small wonder that everything seemed all at once to be going round. Was it possible that the greatest of life’s prizes—from every sensible woman’s point of view—was being offered me? that I was actually being entreated to accept it? This was something like an adventure.