your grace," he held the
door, and then went out and closed it softly.

It was a huge room splendidly panelled with dark, carved _boiserie_ Louis
XV., the most beautiful of its kind I had ever seen--only it was so dimly
lit with the same shaded lamps one could hardly see into the corners.

The duke was crouching in a chair and looked fearfully pale and ill, and
had an inscrutable expression on his face. Fancy a man so old-looking, and
crippled, being even Robert's half-brother.

I came forward--he rose with difficulty, and this is the conversation we
had.

"Please don't get up," I said. "If I may sit down opposite you."

"Excuse my want of politeness," he said, pointing to a chair; "but my back
is causing me great pain to-day."

He looked such a poor, miserable, soured, unhappy creature, I could not
help being touched.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" I said. "If I had known you were ill I would not have
troubled you now."

"Justice had better not wait," he replied, with a whimsical, cynical, sour
smile. "State your case."

Then he suddenly turned on an electric lamp near me, which made a blaze of
light in my face. I did not jump, I am glad to say; I have pretty good
nerves.

"My case is this: To begin with, I love your brother better than anything
else in the world."

"Possibly--a number of women have done so," he interrupted. "Well?"

"And he loves me," I continued, not noticing the interruption.

"Agreed. It is a situation that happens every day among young fools. You
have known each other about a month, I believe."

"Under four weeks," I corrected.

He laughed--bitterly.

"It cannot be of such vital importance to you, then, in that short time."

"It is of vital importance to me, and you know your brother's character;
you will be able to judge as well as I if, or not, it is a matter of vital
importance to him."

He frowned. "Well, your case?"

"First, to demand on what grounds you condemned me as a 'devilish beauty'?
And why you assume that I should not be faithful to Robert for a year?"

"I am a rather good judge of character," he said.

"You cannot be, or you would see that whatever accident makes me have this
objectionable outside, the me that lives within is an honest person who
never breaks her word."

"I can only see red hair, and green eyes, and a general look of the
devil."

"Would you wish people always to judge by appearances, then?" I said;
"because, if so, I see before me a prejudiced,