“They are,” Playford agreed. “And the man in the street is getting every day more eager for a peep.”
“The man in the street,” said the Duke, the phrase bringing to his mind an unpleasant reminiscence, “has been waiting outside my gates all day for a peep. I don’t know what we are coming to when our very privacy is invaded.”
“It is a sign of these times of undesirable publicity,” Playford answered, almost with a yawn. He had not come there to listen to his Grace’s platitudinous complaints, and was awaiting his opportunity for something else. As for the Lancashires, why, who can bring himself to sympathize with a Duke and Duchess in their social embarrassments? Are they not considered to stand too high on their pedestals for the sympathy of the crowd below to reach them, and to deserve any little exposure which their exalted position invites? At any rate, they were just now but the king and queen of Aubrey Playford’s chess-board.
“I don’t think you need fear any pointing of scandal’s finger at you,” he observed, with a confidence-imparting smile. “The question which will be agitating everybody’s mind, when once they have arrived at the real bearings of the business, will be, who was the lady?”
“Ah, yes,” exclaimed the Duke, somewhat relieved.
“But, Aubrey,” the Duchess protested, “we are as much in the dark there as anybody else.”
Playford’s dark eyes looked hungrily shrewd. “You have no idea, Duchess?” he asked, with a touch of incredulity.
“Not the remotest,” she replied.
“I wish we had,” chimed in the Duke, and then fell to wondering vaguely exactly what he would do with the information if he had it.
The Duchess had her eyes fixed on her visitor’s shrewd face. “You know, Aubrey?” she demanded, with a look of conviction.