"Quick work!" she said smiling. "Leaving her?"
"Yes."
"You are not killing her with kindness then, my friend?"
"She will follow in two or three days."
"In the meantime--does she stay here?" she asked; with a glance round the room that said much.
"Well, no," Sir Hervey answered slowly, his face growing hard. "I don't quite know--it has all been very sudden, you know."
"I'll take her if you like," the duchess said impulsively.
Sir Hervey's face grew pink. "You dear, good, great lady!" he said. "Will you do that?"
"For you, I will," she said, "if it will help you?"
"Will it not," he cried; and, stooping over her hand, he kissed it after the fashion of the day; but a little more warmly--we were going to say, a little more warmly than the duke would have approved.