"Ah, women mature earlier," said the duke. "But their minds never get far beyond the first point at which they arrive."
"I suppose you mean when they marry at seventeen, or their education is otherwise stopped short for them, just when a man is beginning his properly?" Diavolo languidly suggested.
The duke frowned down at him. "Where is your sister?" he asked.
"That I can't tell you," Diavolo answered.
"Don't you know?" the duke said sharply.
"Yes," was the cool rejoinder; "but I don't happen to have my sister's permission to say."
The old man's face relaxed into a smile: "That's right my boy, that's right," he said, "Loyalty is a grand virtue. Be loyal to the ladies"—he shook his head in search of an improving aphorism, but only succeeded in extracting a familiar saw. "Kiss, but never tell," he said, "it's vulgarly put, my boy, but there's a whole code in it, and a damned chivalrous code, too. I tell you, men were gentlemen when they stuck to it."
There was a sound of stealthy footsteps in the room at this moment, and the old duke glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, while Diavolo bent to one side to peer round the chair his grandfather was sitting in, which was between him and the door.
"It's one of the dogs," he said carelessly. "Father Ricardo is out, I think."
The duke looked relieved.