Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ The Duchess felt very much dismayed. She told herself quickly that she would have to tell the Duke that they couldn't ask Sir John Saberer to stay with them till later in the year.
"Beau did really love you," she murmured. "And women ran after him far more than he ran after them. I once challenged him to tell me the truth about you. It was during that evening—I wonder if you remember it as well as I do?—when we four, James and I, you and Beau, spent an evening at Ranelagh."
"I've cause to remember that night," said Ella Carleton sorely. ”

“ The Duchess told herself, with a sudden tightening of the throat, how very much this old woman, albeit unknowingly, had influenced her life for good. Jane Parsleet had not been what is called a pleasant person, but she always had a very strong sense of duty, and she had never allowed her passionate love of the child to whom she really stood in the place of mother, as well as of nurse, to interfere with what she believed it to be right to say or do. ”

“ He smiled quizzically. "You're an incorrigible matchmaker, Laura."
More seriously, he added: "I can't imagine a more melancholy fate for any girl, however plain and stupid she may be, than to marry a man of nearly sixty who is not only blind, but who has outlived everything that he thinks makes life worth living, and who feels like Rip Yan Winkle."
"I don't want him to marry a girl," observed the Duchess a little crossly, "still less anyone plain and stupid, James." ”

“ Said the Duke mildly, "It might occur to you, darling, that——"
"That what?" she asked eagerly.
"They may have been sitting down part of the time? Thanks to your humane forethought, I've had thirty new benches put up in the park since the war, and at this time of year they're often covered with lovers."
"Sitting or standing, two hours is a long time."
"Let's go onto the terrace, and look if we can see them," suggested the Duke. "They may have lost count of time."
"They have so much time to make up," said the Duchess softly.
"You're incurably romantic!" exclaimed the Duke. ”

“ After a moment's pause he added, sorely, "Women don't suffer as men suffer. They're such self-deceivers."
"I'm surprised to hear you say that, Beau," said the Duchess mildly, and to herself she whispered, "I do believe he's still fond of her, after all," while aloud, in a tone she strove to make natural and unconcerned, she observed, "There are James and Ella—coming over the lawn. James will be pleased that you took an earlier train." ”

“ Though the Duchess, in a simple way, prided herself on her knowledge of men and women, men and women were always surprising her by the things they did and by the things they left undone.
About six o'clock, after the Duke, the Duchess, and Sir John Saberer had had, or so at any rate the Duchess said secretly to herself, quite enough of one another, Ella Carleton came down and joined them. ”

“ Peeping over the banisters of our house one afternoon, I once saw them scowling at one another something awful, just as his Grace was going out, and Captain Bo, as he was then called, I never could make out just why, was coming in to tea, conquering-like. I was pleased to see the look his Grace cast on the Captain—that I was."
Illustration: "The Duke said 'Well, Laura? What's your business?' 'My business, and yours too, James, is to keep out of their way while Beau and Ella make friends again.'"
The Duchess laughed aloud. ”

“ Men are more honest than women, Parsy, for, as I told you just now, he didn't deny it, and—and he never did ask me to marry him."
"The young lady he ought to 'a' married," said Mrs. Parsleet slowly, "was sweet Miss Ella. He did love her, though he was hartful in not showing it when there was any other body by. He was a crafty one—the Captain was. But there! Some do say that out of evil now and again good do come, and I mind that his Grace was very much upset by Captain Saberer's attentions with regard to your Grace—I mean, of course, afore your Grace was your Grace. ”

“ Parsleet looked deprecatingly at the Duchess.
"I was afraid you might get to like him, dearie. Many a young lady begins by not liking a young gentleman, and concludes by liking him too much"—and she dolefully shook her old head. ”

“ No doubt they've quite forgotten each other by now."
"Few is as faithful-hearted as your Grace," said the old woman fondly.
And then she added with a funny little smile: "And if I may be so bold as to say so, few is as romantical."
A few moments later the Duchess was walking down a corridor which ended in two delightful rooms, a bedroom and a sitting-room, which had been occupied in turn by her three elder, and now married, daughters. The little suite formed part of what in the Castle were called "the family rooms," and no visitor was ever put there. ”

“ He hesitated, and the Duchess supplied the words—"aftermath of bitterness? Oh, James, how well I can understand that."
"So can I. When one thinks of what he was like when we were all young together—— How I used to envy him!"
"He was a good bit older than you," observed the Duchess.
"When one's twenty-three, one longs to be twenty-nine," said the Duke sententiously. "And Beau doesn't look old, even now."
"Has Sir John Saberer been ill?" ”

“ The reason, dearie, was that you'd been driving round and round the Regent's Park, and in a hansom-cab too, with that very villain. You told me as how he'd shouted hup, through the nasty little trap-door in the roof, 'Drive round and round till the horse drops dead!'—a very unfeeling thing for a gentleman to order about a poor quadruped has had served him faithful. ”

“ And then he said something which touched her. "All the same, those were the good days," he exclaimed. "I wouldn't exchange the girls of my youth for the girls of to-day, if half of what I'm told by my friends is true. ”

“ There were a good many young chaps who'd have given years of their life to change places with Beau Saberer."
"I suppose every man secretly longs to be a breaker of hearts 1 D'you remember old Pam's answer, when someone asked him why he made love to every woman he met?" ”