"Ten million apologies, most noble lady. I am ashamed to confess I did not hear the remark you did me the undeserved honour to make."
In no wise disconcerted, the most noble lady repeated the remark, slightly strengthening the language in which it had originally been couched.
"Ah—h!" The duke's grimace and pantomime expressed deprecation with a more elaborately hideous vim than that feeling had probably ever been clothed with before. "Most illustrious lady," he protested, "what would you have? The state of my unworthy heart is well known to you. And the heart excuses everything—everything."
The repetition of the last word had a sinister sound in the ears of Gage and Peckover. With its dire comprehensiveness it seemed to include their lives in its sweeping embrace.
But Lady Ormstork, with sundry material reasons to influence her judgment, was far from accepting the proposition. "It does not," she objected stoutly. "To force your attentions where they are distasteful is inexcusable."
"It is," rejoined the duke, with the light of battle in his eyes, "clearly my duty to render acceptable the homage of my affection."
"It is quite hopeless," declared Lady Ormstork curtly.
"I believe not," insisted the duke with, under the circumstances, an admirable display of assurance.
Lady Ormstork glanced with equal confidence at her protégée. "Miss Buffkin will bear me out."
"Yes. It's no good, duke," said the young lady with discomfiting promptness. "You are not my sort."